I Pfospectipg 

j 

-=^-^)Vliperals 

-IN- 

BpiTISfl eOLOjVIBIA, 

-OR- 


FOURTEEN DfiYS IN THE HILLS; 

Its Pains, Pleasures and Results. 

(A True Story Descriptive of Mining Life.) 


. BY . 

Erqery C. Betts 

-o- 




r 


“Gold is the great magician of earth, it realizes our dreams, it 
gives them the power of a God, there is a grandeur, a sublimity in 
its possession; it is the mightiest, yet the most obedient of our 
slaves.” The last days of Pompeii, page 99. 


o 


BETTS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
PUBLISHERS, 
Minneapolis. Minn. 

























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I remained seated on the rock watching the thrust and parry of hunter 
and game. Page, 49. 





















Pfospectipg 




j^ipefals 


- 1^1 - 


BPIflSH 




FOURTEEN DRYS IN THE HILE8: 

Its Pains, Pleasures and Results. 

(A True Story Descriptive of Mining Life.) 

_ _ _ _ n 

. BY . . 

Eiriery C. Betts 

^cr> 

“Gold is the great magician of earth, it realizes our dreams, it 
gives them the power of a God, there is a grandeur, a sublimity in 
its possession; it is the mightiest, yet the most obedient ot our 
slaves.” The last days ot Pompeii, page 99. 


o 


BETTS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
PUBLISHERS, 
Minneapolis, Minn. 




















BRITISH GOLUMBIH DIREGTORY. 


AINSWORTH, B. 0. 
Assayer and Chemist. 

C. H. Stalberg. 

Bakery and Laundry. 
Leemy Kee. 

Druggists. 

Dr. J. J. Henry. 

Hotels. ‘; I ;, ■ '; 

Aihstvorth Hotel, 

I. C. Olson, Pi:op. 
V'anCQuver Hotel, 

W. W. McKinnen, Prop 

Mining and Miners’ Sup¬ 
plies. 

H. Giegerich. 

NELSON, B. C. 
Banks. 

Bank of British Columbia 
Bank of Montreal. 

Hotels. 

Phair Hotel. 

Mining and Miners’ Sup¬ 
plies. 

R. E. Lemon. 

THREE FORKS, B.C. 
Mining and Miners’ Sup¬ 
plies. 

R. E. Lemon. 


KASLO, B. C. 
Assayers. 

Buck & Haultain. 

Commission Merchants. 
Smith & Van Norman. 

Druggists. 

Cour d’Alene Drug Store 

Hotels. 

Hotel Slocan. 

Cour d’Alene Hotel, 

John Ward, Prop 

Hardware. 

Byers Hardware Co. 

Mining and Miners’ Sup¬ 
plies. 

H. Giegerich. 

Kaslo Provision Co. 
Green Bros. 

John T. Wilson. 

Smith & Van Norman. 

Restaurants. 

“Idaho,” W.Kellam, Prop 

Saloons. 

The “Kootenai,” 

A. McKenzie, Prop 

Tailors. 

P. McPhail. 


Copyright, 1894, by Emery C. Betts. All Rights Reserved. 













Prospecting for flinerals 

—IN— 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 


—OR— 

^ FOURTEEN DAYS IN THE HILLS ^ 


Its Pains, Pleasures and Results 


(A true story, descriptive of mining life) 


CHAPTER 1. 

AT BEAR LAKE 

The evening of the last day of July, 1893, 
found three of the many who had left behind 
the sweets of civilization in the early spring, 
for a life in the hills for a few years, nicely 
ensconsed under a large teepe tent, near the 
lower end of Fish Lake, about half a mile below 
the town of Watson, British Columbia, the most 
westerly province of Canada, in the heart of the 
noted Slocan mining district. The three were 
Seldon Weese, an American, a heavy set, dark 
complexioned man of about fifty years; P. M. 



2 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


Hayes, a much younger man, who always went 
by the familiar name of Pat, owing no doubt to the 
fact that some of his remote ancestors wielded 
the shillalah with skill at some Donny brook 
Pair, or scaled in search of pleasure and game 
the hills around the beautiful waters of Killar- 
ney; and Edward Nelson, a beardless youth,, 
whom we always called Ed for short, and no one 
for a moment would doubt that his forefathers^ 
and he himself, first saw the light of day 
in “the land of the midnight sun”. 

All three, as well as the writer, hailed from 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, and were fairly well ac¬ 
quainted with each other. Up to this time the 
writer had made his home at Watson, while 
Weese, Hayes and Nelson claimed Ainsworth—a 
town on the west shore of Lake Kootenay—as 
their British Columbia home, they having done 
assessment work on some good prospects which 
they had there with the intention of returning 
to Ainsworth later in the season. 

According to previous arrangement the writer 
met the three persons mentioned on their retura 
from their work at Bear Lake, for the purpose 
of taking a prospecting trip Vv^ith them over the 
hills to Ainsworth, a distance of about twenty- 
five miles in a straight line, which would take 
us out of the lime shale and slate formation, 
found in most of the Slocan district, much of 
which had been gone over by prospectors in. 
search of large bodies of galena ore on the sur¬ 
face, and into the granite, which had not been 


m BRITISH COLUMBIA 3 

prospected much, and where large bodies of ore 
are seldom found on the surface; and over the 
highest mountains, and biggest glaciers in the 
province. 

Here we mingled together our provisions and 
•cooking utensils for the trip, which consisted of 
as nearly as I can remember, fifty pounds 
flour, twelve pounds bacon, ten pounds beans, 
five pounds rice, ten pounds corn meal, two 
pounds baking powder, five pounds evaporated 
apples, and one pound each of tea and coffee; 
two frying pans (one for bannock, the other for 
bacon), one four-quart iron pail, one two quart 
iron pail and a coffee pot. 

Weese, on the evening mentioned, complained 
of a lame back, and it was doubtful if he would 
be able to join the party on the morrow. 

The next morning—that of the first of August 
—the sun rose clear and bright, and everything 
seemed to indicate that the almost incessant rain 
of the last four months had ceased, and that the 
“dry season” had really commenced, Weese’s 
back w’as as lame as it was the night previous, 
and the verdict of the party was that he should 
not subject himself to the hardships attending a 
twelve or fifteen days tramp over the mountains, 
but should go direct to Ainsworth, by the way 
of Kaslo—the largest town on Kootenay Lake, 
and one of the two outlets for the rich ores of 
the Slocan district—Three Forks being the 
other. 

While we were sorry to lose Weese’s company 


4 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


on our trip (for he was a jovial, good natured 
fellow), we were doubly sorry when we found 
that as three would constitute the party instead 
of four, so there would only be three to carry 
the whole of the provisions. 

Having divided our outfit into as nearly as 
possible three ^qual parts we commenced to 
make up our packs for our initial prospecting 
trip in British Columba. 

The pack is made up in this way: spread your 
blankets, or canvass, or both (canvass on the 
ground if you want to protect your blankets), 
place your provisions and what is to constitute 
your pack on or near the middle and across one 
end of your blankets, so that they will cover a 
space of from fourteen to eighteen inches in 
width, and and from two to two and one half 
feet in length; turn your blankets and canvass 
in on each side the whole length to the end 
of and over your parcels, piled one upon 
another, and side by side; then roll your blan¬ 
kets and canvass from the end on which your 
parcels are until they are all rolled up, taking 
good care at first that the parcels do not get 
out of place, and all the time trying to fold the 
blankets into as small a roll as possible. Then 
with a small rope or cord, with a loop in one 
end, through which you insert the other, take a 
tight hitch round one end of the roll, then 
round the other, and then over each end and 
fasten tightly. You then have a roll that is not 
bunglesome, and if properly strapped to you 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


5 


will ride on your journey like a duck on the 
water. But no matter how well made up and 
tied the pack is, if it be not properly strapped, 
it will fee] heavier than it really is, and will 
bother you in difficult, and is liable to cause 
you severe injury, in dangerous places. 

The ordinary pack straps of the prospector are 
a pair of overalls, and they are perhaps the best. 
The body of the overalls is put over the top end 
of the pack and buttoned or bound tightly; and 
the bottom of the legs are tied round or other¬ 
wise fastened to the rope which is around the 
bottom of the pack; being careful all the time 
to leave the straps just loose enough so that 
you can place your arms behind you and run 
each between a leg of the overalls and the pack, 
and bring one over each shoulder. If your pack 
be then uncomfortable on you it is caused by 
over weight. If a strap or piece of canvass 
folded up be used for straps, it should be put 
under and back over the rope which is around 
the top of the back as above. If two single 
straps be used instead of one double one, care 
should be taken in having them fastened closely 
together at the top, as then the pack on the 
journey will be held firmly to the shoulders, and 
will not sway from one side to the other 

CHAPTER II. 

WE ARE “BEASTS OF BURDEN.” 

Having made up our packs as nearly as pos- 


6 PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 

sible according to the above directions, minus 
the overalls (for we had only one pair each, and 
we loreferred to put them to their ordinary use), 
and placed a small prospecting pick under the 
ropes at the back of each of our packs, with the 
addition of a small hand ax on Pat’s pack, we 
bid Weese adieu, got into harness, and with a 
staff in each of our right hands were off down 
the wagon road for a little spurt to Bell’s Camp, 
a distance of about two miles, where we were 
to take the Jackson trail which leads to the 
south up Jackson Creek, and through Jackson 
basin to the summit—within two miles from 
where we crossed are at least three hundred 
mineral locations, many of which are mines of 
almost fabulous richness, containing one or more 
veins of ore from one to fourteen leet wide and 
running from one hundred to two thousand 
ounces to the ton in silvery some ot which are 
rich in gold also ; and from which are annually 
shipped several thousand tons of ore 
We had not gone far on our way towards 
Bell’s, and our packs were commencing to get 
heavy, when we were overtaken by a two horse 
team and wagon in charge of a Mr. Pound who 
is every pound a gentlemen, for he openly sym¬ 
pathized with the poor prospector, saying he knew 
what it was to carry a heavy pack for he had 
lately returned from a prospecting trip in St. 
Mary’s and the Lardo and Duncan River dis¬ 
tricts; and did the good Samaritan act of drawing 
ing our packs to Bell’s free of charge for which 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


7 


he received our utmost thanks. 

We followed along behind the team and 
reached Bell’s as our packs were being unloaded 
by Mr. Pound; and again thanking him for his 
kind and gentlemanly act, we donned the pack 
straps and started down across the Kaslo stream, 
took the Jackson trail and commenced to ascend 
the mountain side. 

By this time the sun was up over the tops of 
thd mountains and dense timber, and it rays 
were unto us. toiling under our seemingly heavy 
loads, as a hot fire is to a piece of fat bacon. 

Oh, ye, in your eastern and southern homes, 
who have never ascended hills higher or steeper 
than the horse backs and sand hills of your 
native heath, nor carried packs heavier than a 
five pound ulster, or a watermelon, do not think 
for a moment that you, strong as you may be, 
could carry even a fifty pound pack up a moun¬ 
tain all day, no matter how good the trail, 
without losing more aqueous matter than you 
ever did in one day before. 

The day continued warm, and we continued on 
cur iourney up the Jackson trail, by the Jack- 
son mine, and on through the basin to the sum¬ 
mit, a distance of about five miles from the 
base of the mountain, by short pulls, the head 
one after each rest going to the rear as wolves 
aie said to do. and despite our breasts and necks 
were bare to the mountain breezes for eight long 
hours until we got up to snow line our packs 
were wet with perspiration from our overheated 


8 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


bodies. But what will not men do for 
money?—“The root of all evil”—(when wrongly 
used only, but the source of great pleasures 
and comforts when used as it should be). 

In the morning we did not intend going far¬ 
ther than the basin, a distance of four miles, 
the first day, but when we got there it was 
early in the afternoon, and I, the “green horse” 
of the party, thought we could reach the divide 
before dark, which we did with two hours to 
spare. Being in good spirits, and not feeling 
the effects of our tramp, when we reached the 
summit, we kept on and went on top, and scaled 
round the divide for nearly a mile, in a south¬ 
easterly direction towards the big basin at the 
head of the south branch of Carpenter Creek, 
'\;^here we found a level, dry place, near wood 
and water, when we pitched our tent and 
camped for the night. 

Our supper consisted of the usual mountain 
fare, viz: boiled rice with sugar, fried bacon, 
bannock and coffee. 

The bannock is the prospector’s substitute for 
bread. It is made on his trips over the hills as 
follows: put one pint, or more, of flour in pan 
(usually a frying pan); add one large spoon full 
of baking powder and a little salt; after mixing 
thoroughly while dry turn in water and mix 
until you have a very stiff paste; then put part 
(or the whole if not too much) in a frying pan; 
hammer it with your fist as Corbett does the 
«and bag until it covers the whole of the bot* 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


9 


tom of the pan; then hold it over the fire until 
the bottom commences to stiffen, all the time 
fiopping it up and around to keep it from stick¬ 
ing to the bottom of the pan; then set the pan 
on its edge by the side of, and front to, the 
fire, but not too near, and leave it there till the 
top is nicely browned. You then have a cake 
good enough for the ordinary prospector, if not 
for the Queen. 

After supper Ed cooked some beans for use 
the next day, while I was glad to '‘turn in” 
under our good supply of blankets, as also did 
Pat; and both were soon in the arms of Mor¬ 
pheus, no more that night to suffer from aching 
limbs and sore feet. 

The next morning, August 2nd, after ten 
hours of good rest and sweet sleep, we were all 
up with, I was going to say “the lark”; but God 
did not favor this country with bird one third 
as strong and swift of wing or sweet of song. 
The best he could, or did, furnish was the 
chickadee, and it has but little feathered com¬ 
pany. British Columbia did not receive an 
equal share of birds at the original distribution; 
or, if it did, each has utterly failed to propa¬ 
gate the species. So I will not let poetic fancy 
cause me to lead my readers to believe that this 
is a land of feathered songsters with plumage gay, 
and will simply and truthfully say that we were 
up with the chickadee and the wren—lone chirpers 
of the mountain side—at seven o’clock, prepara¬ 
tory to our second day’s journey, feeling not 


10 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


much the worse for our long tramp the day 
before. 

Breakfast over (of which Ed’s beans consti¬ 
tuted the greater part), and packs made up, we 
were within three quarters of an hour from the 
time of arising, into our pack straps, and with 
staffs in hand, or, in both hands, rather, and 
holding them above us (which is the proper way 
going along or down a mountain side), scaling 
the side of a very steep, but smooth mountain 
side, gradually ascending until we reached the 
top. 

Summit reached we followed along on top of 
the snow, red with animalcule, which we found 
in large quantities at times, and hard, until we 
would come to some rocky peak towering hun¬ 
dreds of feet above the main range, which we 
would either scale round on a level with the 
range, or climb over the top like goats. 

The day was about equally spent in scaling 
rough and steep side hills, rock slides and rocky 
peaks, and traveling along on top of the range; 
and we arrived at four o’clock in the big basin, 
opposite the head of Twelve Mile creek on the 
north east, which empties into the Kaslo stream we 
crossed the first morning of our journey twelve 
miles above Kaslo, hence its name, and the west 
fork of the south branch of the Kaslo and east 
branch of the Cody on the south, and in the 
basin of the south branch of the Carpenter; 
without any mishaps or injuries received during 
the day, except a little scare that I received 


m BRITISH COLUMBIA 


11 


when scaling along a steep side hill where there 
were many rock slides covered with snow which 
we were obliged to cross. On one of these we 
were obliged to descend for about twenty feet 
in order to go round a point of rocks which was 
otherwise impassable. I came over some large 
rocks onto the snow in company with Pat, and 
as as I attempted to stand erect on the snow, 
it being somewhat soft from the effects of the 
hot sun, my hold gave way and down I went 

over the side of the 
hill in the direction of 
a rock slide one hun¬ 
dred and fifty feet be¬ 
low, all the time us¬ 
ing my utmost endeav¬ 
ors with hands, feet 
and staff to keep * my 
head and pack above 
my feet, and stop my¬ 
self, which I was very 
fortunate in doing just 
opposite to where I 
wanted to leave the 
snow. ‘ ‘There, ” said 
Hat in a jocular man¬ 
ner, after I had re¬ 
gained my feet, “you 
DOWN I WENT OVER THE could not do that again 
SIDE OP THE HILL. if you should try.” I 
made some remark, I now forget what, in reply; 
not about Pat, but the slippery snow and steep 








12 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


mountain sides, and trudged along and was more 
careful in the future. 

Perhaps some one of my readers may think 
that he can lose his foothold on the side of a 
mountain, of angle of forty-five degrees, cov¬ 
ered with hard snow, with the top loosened up 
and made slippery by the sun’s hot rays, with a 
fifty-pound pack on his back, and not go head 
first (after the first few feet) onto the rocks two 
or three hunred feet below. If there be such art 
one I will advise him not to try the experiment,^ 
for I am quite certain of one thing, and that 
is, that he will not be able to stop at the exact 
point he wants to descend to, as I did. 

CHAPTER III. 

WE PITCH OUR TENT IN THE BIG BASIN—^AND 
PROSPECT. 

Here on these high peaks, the highest in the 
whole Slocan district, towering hundreds, and 
even thousands, of feet above the main range, 
and by these piles of eternal snow, covering 
nearly the entire northerly side of the hills, ex¬ 
cept the very tops, to a depth of ten to one hun¬ 
dred feet, and in line with the great gold belt 
to the south in which the town of Nelson is 
situated, we thought would be a good place to 
prospect fora few days; so we took some time 
in looking over the grounds for a good camping 
place, and were not long in choosing a nice 
mossy knoll studded around with yellow moss- 
covered juniper trees about forty rods down the 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


13 


side of the divide and. in the big basin; and here 
Pat and I pitched our tent, leveled the 
ground, and houghed it with scrub fir and balsam 
boughs, and spread our blankets into a field bed; 
while Ed prepared our frugal evening meal. 

Before retiring for the night we discovered 
that an undaunted prospector had preceded us to 
this mountain fastness and claimed his share of 
its hidden and unhidden treasures, for we read 
on the top of a post within twenty rods from 
our tent, “Northwest corner post of Castic min- 
erahclaim; located June 23rd, 1893—McLeod, lo¬ 
cator. ” » 

But one, or even a thousand, prospectors cannot 
find all the mineral veins in a range of moun¬ 
tains in a single season, so we did not feel as 
though the locator of the Castic had stolen our 
“thunder,” but on the contrary were glad that 
we had at least one neighbor in that lonely 
spot. 

We were all quite tired and retired early and 
had a good rest the first night we were in the 
basin, and did not arise or make any stir until 
the sun shone in our tent the next morning, 
when Pat was the first one to “turn out,” fol¬ 
lowed soon by both Ed and me. 

Breakfast cooked and eaten, Ed seized his pros¬ 
pecting pick and started off towards the divide 
south of the great peak at the head of Twelve 
Mile, saying as he went as did the Irishman’s 
partner at Paddy’s Peak, “I will locate a claim 
for myself today, and will locate one for you tomor- 



14 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


row” and was soon scaling the snow clad moun¬ 
tain side and on over the divide. 

Soon after Ed disappeared from view Pat and 
I thought that we would take a stroll and try 
our luck; so with picks in hand we started off 
in the direction that Ed Avent. We had not gone 
far, however, when Pat dropped down to the 
bottom of the basin near a small lake, and there 
discovered two posts, one the southwest corner 
post of the Castic, and the other the northwest 
corner post of a mineral claim located on the 
same vein as the Castic and called the Free 
Coinage. I did not go down, to the posts but 
circled round on a bench of rocks covered with 
snow to a point nearly opposite the posts, where 
I was joined by Pat. From this point of vant¬ 
age we could see some fissures in the high peak 
at the head of Carpenter creek, and v/e conclud¬ 
ed to examine them, hoping that they would 
prove to be mineral bearing veins, so we com¬ 
menced to ascend the mountain side on the hard 
snow. Pat went first thrusting first one heel 
and then the other of his shoes in the hard 
snow, thus making benches which would bear up 
the weight of his body, and up he went, slowly 
and carefully, while I followed after, sticking 
the toes of my shoes in his heel tracks, for I 
could not rest my body on my heels on the snow 
as he did. We were not long in going to a bench 
—or, level place—in the rocks above vrhich it 
seemed unsafe for me to venture, for it was 
steep and craggy and partially covered with 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


15 


snow; and I remained on the bench while Pat 
ascended to the largest fissure. I had been wait¬ 
ing on the bench some forty or fifty minutes, 
when I heard small particles of snow rattle down 
the mountain side, and I knew that Pat was on 
the snow and probably descending. Soon he ap¬ 
peared just above with pick in one hand and a 
piece of quartz, which he had taken out of the 
fissure in the other, and a moment later was ai 
my side on the bench. We examined the quartz 
carefully, and both thought it a fine specimen, 
and out of a mineral vein, but under our mag¬ 
nifying glass (one thing indispensable to a pros¬ 
pector) did not show that it contained galena or 
any of the precious metals. 

Pat and Ed had been used to the snow on the 
Minneapolis hill, near the Noble Five group, 
ever since they went into the Slocan in June, 
and it did not seem such a bugbear to them as 
it did to me, who had never used it as a means 
of reaching the bottom of a hill a few minutes 
after leaving the top as they had. So Pat, after 
a few words of comment on the surroundings, 
straddled his prospecting pick handle and down 
over the steep mountain side, on the hard snow, 
he went; while I too timid to even descend in 
his tracks, scaled round the bench and snow un¬ 
til I came to a place not as steep as the other 
parts, and where I thought I could descend with 
safety, when I imitated Pat, and was soon by 
his side on a lower bench astride of my pick 
handle. 


16 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


We were now near the bottom of the basin, 
and within easy reach of the comparatively bare 
mountain side opposite our camp and below the 
divide between the heads of the west fork of the 
Kaslo and East Cody and Carpenter creeks, so 
we concluded to look that territory over before 
returning to camp. We had gone but eight or 
ten hundred feet when we found ourselves on 
the edge of the deep snow in the hollow at the 
source of the Carpenter, which was ten or fifteen 

rods wide at that point. 
On the opposite side of 
this belt of snow from 
where we approached 
it, and at its very edge, 
there was a steep cliff 
of rocks fifty or more 
feet in height and 
three or four hundred 
feet in length; while 
above and below were 
comparatively smooth 
places; and on the 
rear a wide, almost 
level bench. Pat 
thought he would go 
down round the cliff, 
PAT STRADDLED HIS PROS- while I Concluded to 

PECTING PICK HANDLE, AND f ? ^^ove it and meet 

him on the cliff be- 

DOWN OVER THE STEEP 

MOUNTAIN SIDE, ON THE snow we Started, Pat 
HARD SNOW, HE WENT, (pgl 5) bearing down toward 








IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


17 


the bottom of the cliff and I toward the upper 
end of it. When I came to within fifty feet of 
the edge of the snow nearer the cliff I noticed 
near my path a point of rocks six or eight feet 
long by three high and four wide projecting out 
of the snow. I bore up to it for the purpose of 
examining it (for a prospector when he is pros¬ 
pecting examines all the rock he sees), and as I 
neared it I saw that at least three feet in width 
of it was not granite, the character of the forma¬ 
tion—or, bedrock—that we were then in, but was 
some other kind of rock and heavily stained with 
iron, indicative of a mineral vein. I called to 
Pat, who had not yet disappeared from my view, 
to come up and see what I had found, which he 
did. He had no doubt that we had discovered 
a mineral vein, or, a slide from one; he was in¬ 
clined to the opinion that it was the latter, while 
I was confident it was the former, so erect it seemed 
to stand and ran with the formation. We at once 
proceeded to settle the question as to whether the 
stained iron rock which I had accidently dis¬ 
covered was a slide from a vein higher up on 
the mountain, or was the cropping of the real 
vein beneath, so we sighted -up the mountain in 
the way it appeared to run, to the nearest point 
of rocks which was three or four hundred feet 
above and in the snow; and there we went and 
found the same kind of rock cropping up, and 
from ten to fifteen feet wide, between two walls 
of granite—a real fissure vein. ^ 

Between the point where we last found 


18 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


Ihe vein and the top of the divide no rock 
ivas visible, the mountain side being coverea 
with hard snow from ten to one hundred 
ieet deep, and we then sighted along 
the vein up over the divide and -found a small 
point of rocks in our line of sight. We then 
started up over the snow, and weren obliged to 
circle round on it some distance, so steep was 
it, in order to reach the top, which we did, how¬ 
ever, after thirty or forty minutes hard climbing; 
ind at the very edge of the point of rocks 
which was in our line of vision when sighting 
from below we found the cropping of the vein. 

From the top of the divide to where we had 
traced our vein, and looking toward the south 
and west, quite a different and more cheerful 
scene from that in the basin we had a moment 
before climbed out of appeared in view. A 
smooth, but quite steep mountain side, with an 
occasional clump of dwarfed fir trees, and dotted 
over with wild and pretty flowers; the hot rays 
of a July sun had proved too much for flaky 
snow and robbed it of its white winter coat. 
Below, the narrow, low, level divide of the 
Kaslo and Cody, skirted around with balsam and 
juniper, but itself treeless and brushless; the 
root-like scourcelets of the two streams spread 
out and cutting the green sward, as if in friendly 
strife trying to ascertain which could extract 
the more water from the grassy plot for their 
parent stream. Decked with wild strawberry 
blossoms and white bells, with here and there 




IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


19 


a tasseled flower, surely that little valley on the 
mountain top beneath the clear sky and hot sun 
of that August day seemed to us a homelike 
spot. 

We then traced the vein down the south side 
of the divide, nearly to the bottom, during all 
of which distance its dark surface was plainly 
visible; when we commenced to grow hungry; and 
as we had not brought anything with us to sup¬ 
port the “Inner man” during the day we re¬ 
traced our steps and returned to camp, part of 
the way, on the northerly side of the hill, 
astride of our pick handles. 

We had not been in camp long when Ed, more 
hungry than tired put in an appearance bringing 
with him a piece of “float” which he had picked 
up on the Kaslo—Cody side of the divide, pre¬ 
sumably from the vein Pat and I had discovered 
and traced for over two thousand feet; also, the 
news that he had found the initial posts of the 
Castic and Free Coinage claims, which stood on 
a little bench near the few scrubby trees, not far 
from where I was when Pat was at the corner 
posts near the little lake in the morning. 

Up to the time Ed appeared Pat and I had not 
become sufficiently rested from our climb up 
over the quite steep side hill to our tent to 
make preparations for dinner; and as Ed on his 
return had no climb to make, he having scaled 
the side hills all day, and therefore was not very 
weary, and preferred to do most of the cooking, 
he was soon at work breaking dry limbs from 


20 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


“the bottom of a scrub balsam tree near by for 
fuel, which were soon ablaze and cpoking our 
hacon, bannock and coffee. 

We had nearly finished our meal (which vve 
relished better than we would have the best 
Delmonico dinner) when we heard a rattl in 
the snow above us in the direction of Ive 

Mile, and looked up and saw a man with )pe 
and pack straps slung over his shoulder ap¬ 
proaching. As he came up to where we ^ ^re 
seated (by the side of a large fiat rock— tur 
“dining table”)—we as generous, hospitable j ds- 
pectors offered him a cup of coffee, and to :e- 
pare some bacon and bannock for his dinner; a' of 
which he declined with thanks, saying that tie 
had only a short distance more to go to is 
fent which was near the little lake at the 1 >t- 
tom of the basin (the one Pat had visited in le 
morning), which surpised Pat very much as le 
thought he should have been able to disco jr 
such a prominent thing as a prospector’s t it 
on the shore of a lake not more than one h i- 
dred feet across when he was at its waters edge, 
s But a person cannot see every object within 
his range of vision; and the professional pros¬ 
pector is liable to go within a few feet of a rich 
mineral vein and not see it, which the poor “ten¬ 
derfoot,” coming a lew moments later, is liable 
to stumble over and see. Such has been the 
luck of the non-professional prospector as proved 
by the discoveries in the Slocan; and yet it is 
not all luck. It would, perhaps, be presumptuous 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


21 


in me to say that a man who has never been in 
a inine in his life, nor read a line on geology or 
m: ralogy knows more about prospecting than 
on^"who has worked in mines in all the forma- 
tioj . known to geology, or read all the , works 
on I lineralogy; and will pass this somewhat per- 
soi 1 point of my story by changing to suit the 
cas a couplet from the poet Burns which may 
suj ;est where the meat in the cocoanut lies. 

i le poet has said: 

I “Theories often fail, for errors sometimes 

I breed them;” 

I 

' “But facts are stubborn things and honest 

I men will heed them.” 

' will make the lines less poetical and quite 
af true: 

I Theories often fail for Nature sometimes dis- 
a ’ees with them. But mines are not very pro* 
D nent things and none but workers will find 

t^m. 

j|po my tenderfoot reader do not say that you 
know nothing about mines and would never find 
one; but put your time in knocking over the 
hills where fancy leads you against the strolls 
of the expert based on his theories alone, and 
you will have, in a few years, ten mines to Mr. 
Expert’s one. The experts are all good fellows 
though, but many of them would rather ^ enter¬ 
tain a friend with a good story or play a social 
game of cards in his tent, than climb a steep 


22 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


mountain or carry a pack—two essentials to pros¬ 
perity in a mining country. 

Although we retired to rest at an early hour 
dhe night previous, the sun on his travels on our 
second morning in the basin found us still 
sleeping soundly, but he had not gone far on 
his journey above the Twelve Mile divide when 
we became conscious of his march, and arose 
wdth keen appetites w^hich were appeased with 
nice boiled beans, together with our usual bill of 
fare of bacon, bannock and coffee; and were 
soon off for the Cody side of the divide intending 
that day to trace as far as we would be able, the 
vein we had discovered the day before. This day Ed 
went with Pat and me, and was highly pleased 
when we showed him on our way over the snow 
through the basin the mineral vein. 

We were not long in going to our turning 
point on the vein of the day before, and con¬ 
tinued down the side of the mountain to its base, 
following the capping of the lead. We had some 
trouble finding it on the opposite side of the 
canon, for it did not crop up in the valley as 
on the mountain side, when we again were 
obliged to get its course and sight ahead across 
the canon. Between us and the opposite moun¬ 
tain, and not far from its base, stood a lump 
of trees, the highest on that divide, which was 
in line of our vision when sighting ahead on 
the vein; so we crossed the treeless divide to 
the clump of trees, and there found between 
them and the Kaslo stream our vein, cropping 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


23 


up good and strong for three or four hundred 
feet to the mountain, along the base of which 
the earth was deep and covered with a thick 
growth of trees. We followed along through the 
timber a slight depression in the earth, in which, 
every few hundred feet, the capping of the 
vein appeared above the surface. And so on we 
went to the base of the next mountain, which 
ran across our path, and up its steep side to the 
summit, hitting in our ascent nearly every stone 
we saw with our picks, for the capping of our 
vein did not appear often on that side of the 
mountain; but appeared on the top as plainly as 
it did on the top of the first one. above the 
point of discovery. Continuing on we 'traced the 
lead to the bottom of the southerly side of the 
mountain, to the line formation, where the wash 
was so deep that we lost sight of it and could 
not trace it farther. 

Retracing our steps to a small lake at the 
northerly base of the mountain, from which 
issued a small stream of limpid water, we sat 
down to eat the lunch we had been wise enough 
to carry with us, and to quench our thirst. We 
had been seated but a moment when we heard a 
noise on the mountain side, and on looking 
above the rolling stones saw a prospector with 
pack on his back slowly descending the moun¬ 
tain side and not far above its base. Where we 
were seated appeared to be near the natural 
path of a person coming in the direction that 
the stranger was, and soon he was seated by our 


24 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


sides quenching his thirst from the waters of 
the rippling stream and wiping the prespiration 
from his heated brow. He proved to be a Mr. 
McDonald, who, save in the prospecting season, is a 
familiar figure behind a train of pack mules 
which carry heavy loads of merchandise and 
other miner’s supplies from Kaslo to Watson, 
Bear Lake City, Hughes’ Headquarters, Three 
Forks, New Denver, Silverton, Sandon and other 
mining centers in the Slocan. He had no news 
to impart regarding the business he was en¬ 
gaged in, and we had none to give in return. 
The conversation soon drifted to the subject of 
game, led by our companion, Pat, who was anx¬ 
ious to see some, for up to this time we had not 
seen an animal larger than a coney. McDonald 
said that the day before he saw and was within 
fifty feet of three goats, but unluckily his gun 
at that moment was dangling from his partner’s 
belt a mile or so away, and he did not have 
the pleasure of at least trying to secure some 
goat meat. Pat then openly wished that he 
could get within fifty feet, or even fifty yards, 
of not more than one goat, we would dine on 
fresh goat meat and bannock for a few days. 

After further conversation it appeared that 
McDonald’s partner was none other than McLeod, 
the locator of the Castic, whom we came within 
hailing distance of in the morning at the head 
of the Cody, and who inquired of us the price 
of silver, the then all important question among 
prospectors. In a few moments McDonald’s arms 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


25 


^ere between his pack straps and his pack, and 
wishing us good luck, he started off in the di¬ 
rection we had come, and an hour after was seen 
slowly scaling the south side of the mountain 
that Pat had ascended the morning of our first 
day in ihe basin. 

After a short rest we slowly retraced our 
steps along the base of the mountain, and 
through the timber to the heads of the Kaslo 
and Cody, and on over the divide and through 
the basin to our camping place, tired and 
hungry prospectors. 

The next morning it was agreed that we 
should spend some time in prospecting the vein 
we had discovered and traced, for galena and the 
precious metals; so Pat and I started out leav¬ 
ing Ed at camp to do some cooking. We went 
across the snow in the basin, and up a few 
hundred feet from the bottom where there was 
no snow, and where the bed rock, as also the 
capping of the lead appeared to be broken down 
and worn away, and there near the foot or, lower 
wall of the lead (it pitched to the west) Pat 
commenced to pick with his small prospecting 
pick, while I began picking a few feet below 
and near the hanging—or, upper wall—in what 
seemed to be rock of a different character than 
the capping. I had not picked in that place 
long before I came to a greenish-gray rock with 
some spar and quartz mixed amongst it, a piece 
of which every few minutes I placed on the 
rocks to dry for examination under our glass. 


26 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


Soon several pieces had become dry, and Pat 
who had not found anything but capping and 
wall rock where he was picking came over and 
began the examination under the glass of the 
pieces I had placed to one side. He was not 
long in discovering something more than rock 
under his glass, and holding it on a particular 
spot on the rock in his hand asked me to look 
through it, and tell him, if I could, what was 
beneath. On looking through the glass to the 
spot beneath that had attracted Pat’s attention I 
saw and exclaimed, “Native silver!” Pat replying 
“That’s what it is!” We continued the exam¬ 
ination of the several pieces of rock thrown up 
to dry in nearly every piece of which we dis¬ 
covered the white precious metal. 

On our return to camp that day an incident 
occurred which gave us a “by phrase” that we 
have often jokingly used since. Pat had gone 
down a few hundred feet to see if he could find 
the lead in the bottom of the basin when I 
started over the snow in the direction of the 
little lake and our camp, it being understood 
that I was to wait for him at the corner posts 
of the Castic and Free Coinage claims. On ar¬ 
riving near the posts I became seated on a 
grassy knoll, in the sun, at the edge of the tim¬ 
ber, waiting for Pat to put in an appearance 
from below. I had not been so seated long when 
Pat came up through the timber on a brisk 
walk, and in a comparatively excited state of 
mind, and his first salutation to me was: “Did 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


27 


you see that goat”? I answered that I had not, 
and then he commenced to narrate to me his 
experience of the last few minutes in the timber 
below. He said that soon after he turned in the 
direction of the posts, and had started up over 
the snow, he was surprised and startled to see a 
goat bounding down through the timber directly 
in front of and towards him, and it seeing him 
attempted to turn short, and in doing so fell flat 
on its side on the soft snow; but it was no 
sooner on its side on the snow than it was up 
again and out of sight. Questioning him as to 
the size, color, form, etc., of the animal he had 
lately seen flash before him; he said that it was 
grey, with small horns, and a tufb of long hair 
under its lower jaw; and was somewhat larger 
than a tame goat. 

Up to this time I had not seen a mountain 
goat, and did not know that it was as white as 
the. snow, and thought perhaps the grey animal 
that Pat had a moment before seen was a goat. 
And as if horns and whiskers wouldn’t make a 
goat out of most anything with four legs, he 
commenced to fortify his position, saying that 
it made a track just like a sheep; and then he 
proceeded to show me the track of the animal 
he had followed up, when lo! instead of what 
Pat thought was a track made by the four feet 
of a goat while jumping I saw a track made by 
the wide, separate-like hoof, with “dew claws” 
behind of a caribou. Pat got the impression at 
first that the animal he saw flash before him was 





28 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


a goat, and his imagination supplied it with 
whiskers. 

On scaling up to our tent we saw where the 
caribou had come down over a snow covered 
rock slide from the direction of the divide east 
us, which aided in making Pat’s appetite for the 
food of the Laplander most keen; and he then 
resolved to have a piece of caribou steak for 
breakfast. 

Supper eaten, Pat with gun—a little thirty- 
eight calibre revolver—in hand started down the 
mountain side in quest of big game; and was 
lost to sight until the shades of night were 
settling thick and fast over the snow and tree 
tops of the Big Basin, when we observed him 
in somewhat of a disconsolate mood approaching. 
He had not got within the curtilage of our 
dwelling when he interrogated as follows: “Who 
was using the ax about half an hour ago?” I 
answered that I thought I was preparing fuel 
for a morning fire about that time. “Well,” 
said he, “One click of that ax lost to us a car¬ 
cass of venison.” 

It appeared from the report of his travels that 
he had descended the mountain side until he 
came to a little bench on the lower edge of 
which was a large rock about two hundred yards 
from the little lake at the bottom, when he 
espied the caribou sauntering along near the 
edge of the timber apparently unconscious of its 
great danger. It meandered along up between 
the lake and the hunter, seated as he was 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


29 


behind the large rock on the side hill, out of 
pistol range of his game, and on up to the head 
of the basin, walking for a few rods, and then 
changing its gait to a slow awkward trot for 
about the same distance, when it turned and 
came back towards the lake, but had not come 
far when it heard the “click of the ax”, as also 
did Pat. when it it turned and trotted off in 
another direction, up over snow and rock 
slides, one as easily as the other, and was soon 
lost to view over the divide. 

Up to this time our attentions were too much 
engrossed, and time taken up, in tracing and 
prospecting our vein to examine or prospect the 
vein on which the Castic and Free Coinage 
claims were located; and not until a Mr. Fisher 
—the partner of Peterson—whom we met on 
our first day in the Basin, visited us a few 
minutes after Pat had returned from his caribou 
hunt, on his return from packing part af their 
outfit over into the Twelve Mile basin, where 
they had a few days before made a discovery, 
told us where it was; and pointed out the exact 
spot where the discovery post of the Castic was 
located, which was on the south side of the 
great peak towering above the head of the 
Twelve Mile; and we then resolved to look the 
Castic over the next day. 

The next morning—that of the sixth—we were 
all up early and off for the Castic. We together 
ascended the side of the mountain covered with 
rock slides and hard snow, in a slanting direc- 


30 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


tion towards the east, until we came to the top 
of the snow where the mountain was too steep 
and rocky to hold anything that did not have 
good powers of holding on; then we crept along 
below the projecting rocks until we came to a 
point directly below where Fisher had told us 
the discovery post of the Castic stood, and we 
looked up and saw the gutter-like trench in the 
mountain—the vein of the Castic. I concluded 
that there would be too much romance and hard 
work for me who was not endowed with the 
best goat given proclivity of scaling craggy 
peaks to attempt the ascent to the Castic dis¬ 
covery point, and consequent descent; so I told 
my companions that I would not go up, but 
would go over to the divide and wait there for 
them, which they thought was a wise conclusion 
on my part. And so we parted, they with each 
his prospecting pick in hand and using it to 
hold him to the side of the projecting rocks or 
pull him over, slowly ascended the steep and 
craggy mountain side; and I crept along on top 
and over the side of the snow, the top of which 
at that early hour of the day was hard, even 
harder than the bottom (which in places was 
quite as steep as the cliffs above), until I reached 
the divide, when I sat down to rest and wait for 
Pat and Ed, whom I could scarcely discern 
slowly but surely nearing the discovery point of 
McLeod’s location. In a few minutes they 
stopped and descended into the hollow of the 
vein and were lost to my view. Before long. 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


yi 


however, they appeared in sight, and were de¬ 
scending to the snow below, and in twenty five 
or thirty minutes were on it following the tracki 
I had made a few minutes before. As they 
neared me, Pat, who from the time he left the 
discovery point on the Castic had felt himself 
becoming richer and richer as his imagination 
exerted itself freer and freer, but which did not 
exert itself to the degree that it did the day 
before when it transformed the beardless, awk¬ 
ward reindeer into a whiskered goat, exclaimed, 
“We have got it, and got it right now!” “Got 
what, Pat!” said I. “Got the earth, and it 
fenced in!” replied Pat; and in a tone of voice 
half filled with laughter he continued: “That 
Castic lead is nothing more than a stringer from 
our vein; it is only eighteen or twenty inches 
wide, dips towards ours, and runs towards it, 
and I’ll bet a silk hat runs into this side of the 
head of Cody; its capping is of the same char¬ 
acter of rock as ours, under which is some white 
quartz and spar and six or seven inches of steel 
galena. But I shouldn’t wonder if it would run 
nearly four hundred ounces to the ton in silver 
as Fisher said.” 1 remarked that I was glad to 
hear that the direction of the Castic vein was 
towards ours; and soliloquized as follows: “Pat, 
thou reasonest well! For if the vein on which 
the Castic is located be only eighteen or twenty 
inches wide, and can be traced for only a short dis¬ 
tance—is not distant more than two thousand 
feet from ours where McLeod has set his dis- 




32 


PROSPECTJNG FOR MINERALS 


CO very post—dips in the same direction as and 
towards ours—and runs west of south from the 
point on the mountain side where shines the 
galena—and as our runs directly north and south, 
and is from ten to fifteen feet wide, and plainly 
visible on the surface for more than "a mile— 
may not the narrow one be the “truant offspring” 
of our “parent stem?” and we will find, if not 
this side the Cody, beyond, where grows the 
balsam tree, the point from where the little one 
has wandered away from the broad breast of its 
mother. 

After a short rest we all started south on the 
top of the divide east of the basin intending if 
we could that day to find the discovery post of 
the Free Coinage claim. We had not gone over 
two or three hundred feet when, if we had con¬ 
tinued straight ahead our path would have led 
over the top of the great peak at the head of 
the Carpenter, so I. who always seemed to 
breathe freer in altitudes no higher than divides 
than on mountain peaks, scaled around the hill, 
all the time hoping that the locator of the Free 
Coinage had made his discovery and placed his 
post in an altitude no higher than the divide so 
that I would be the finder of it ; while Pat and 
Ed commenced the goat act of climbing up and 
over the jagged rocks above me. In about an 
hour we all met at our vein on the top of the 
Carpenter divide, Pat and Ed having found the 
discovery post of the Free Coinage claim, which 
was on the northwest side and near the top of 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


33 


the peak, distant a thousand or more feet from 
our vein. 

We then started down on the snow to the 
point on our vein where we had done our work 
the day before, and again spent two or three 
hours picking in the hard rock with our light 
and dull picks, with as good results as the day 
before. We found it quite laborious work dig¬ 
ging in the rock with dull tools, and early in 
the afternoon returned to our camp. 

During the evening Pat suggested that one of 
us had better start for Ainsworth in the morn¬ 
ing to attend to some business and that the two 
remaining should stake the claims on the 10th, 
and break camp the morning of the 11th. The 
suggestion was thought by Ed and me a good 
one, and Ed being always willing to have an 
adventure of some kind, volunteered to make the 
i journey alone, saying that he thought he could 
go through in one day. 

Ever since we reached the top of the divide 
on the Jackson trail the afternoon of the day 
I we left Bear Lake, and saw the high peaks and 
, low timbered canons to the east, in the direc- 
j tion of, and beyond which was Ainsworth—our 
I place of destination—we kept mapping out the 
path we should follow on the journey before us. 

' And often when on the divides above the Big 
j Basin we pointed out a long, wide] densely tim- 
‘ bered canon far to the southeast, which lay in a 
j northwest and southeast direction, and reached 
j up to a high divide, or, range of mountains, on 



34 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


the opposite side of which we thought the 
Woodbury, which empties into Lake Kootenay 
near Ainsworth, had its source, up and through 
which we thought the proper course to take, and 
the one we would take when we set out to com¬ 
plete our journey. 

So far we were blessed with a clear sky; but 
as evening approached great black clouds were 
seen hovering above and around the western 
horizon, and before we had retired for the night 
had formed into one dark wide sheet, covering 
the whole heavens and shutting out the light of 
the bright stars and moon above. ^ And soon 
swift gusts of wind came over the Carpenter- 
Cody divide and Big Basin, continuing on their 
journey over us and on over the divide above 
Twelve Mile, moaning and screeching at times 
as they passed; when now and then, as if it were 
going with less force or heavier than the others, 
one would descend and whistle through the tops 
of the trees over our heads in its 'flight; and 
continuing on their swift march and singing 
their wild and dismal songs they sang us to 
sweet sleep and kept us in its embrace for the 
flrst eight hours of that dark night; when one 
heavier than all the rest caught the side of our 
tent under which I was sleeping and carried it 
over to the opposite side, and was prevented 
from taking it on over the divide into Twelve 
Mile by a friendly tree which stood by the side 
of our bed, on which Ed was sleeping. As we 
pulled our tent over us again we discovered that 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


35 


snow to the depth of an inch or more had fallen 
during the night 

The intense darkness of the night, however, 
soon commenced to lessen, and we had not long 
to lie shelterless from the threathening storm 
until grey dawn appeared—the dawn of the day 
that we and many others had for many days 
looked forward to with not a little anxiety, for 
it was on that day that the Congress of the 
United States was to assemble in extra session 
in answer to the call of the nation’s chief for 
the purpose of removing the causes of depres¬ 
sion in the business of the people, which it did 
nearly three months after by repealing the pur¬ 
chasing clause of the Sherman act relative to 
silver, and squandering the people’s money. 

After the wind had risen and clouds set in the 
night before, we concluded that if the weather 
was not settled in the morning that Ed would 
not start on his journey, for one is easily lost 
on strange mountains, where there is no trail to 
guide him, especially in British Columbia, where 
in unsettled weather, great fog-like clouds hover 
over and often settle down and envelope great 
mountain ranges. So on arising the morning of 
the 7th, the clouds not having broken away, 
and we were unable to see the divides around 
the Big Basin, not over two thousand feet dis¬ 
tant, so thick were the fog clouds, it was finally 
decided that Ed should remain in camp another 
day, and until the clouds should have entirely 
disappeared, and that we would make that a 


36 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


day of rest. 

Tent re-erected, breakfast cooked and eaten, I 
commenced the conversation by saying that it 
would be necessary before Ed started over the 
hills to agree upon names for the claims we 
should locate on the vein discovered; when Pat 
remarked that we would have them in a group, 
to which all assented. “Well,” said Pat, “what 
shall we call the group?” to which I, after a few 
moments reflection, answered, “The Duke of 
York,” thinking, perhaps, that as our mines 
were in the British possessions that the newly 
created title of the lately become heir apparent 
to the English throne would make them more 
conspicuous and widely known, especially among 
Canadians and Englishmen; when Pat, whether 
from ignorance of the title of Prince George, or 
from his great pride in the name of the Empire 
state, in which he first saw the light of day, 
and construed my remark into its name in some 
such away as he did the caribou into a goat, I 
am unable to say, said: “Yes, New York would 
be a good name—let’s call it New York”; to 
which Ed replied, “All right,” and I accepted 
the amendment without debate. “Well,” said I, 
continuing the conversation, “as there will be 
four separate claims on the vein we must have 
a separate name for each—now what will we call 
the separate mines?” Pat replied, “Call the first 
one at the head of Carpenter Creek New York, 
and the others ‘New York numbers 1, 2 and 3,’” 
which seemed a little irregular to me, and I sug- 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


37 


gested that they be named “New York, numbers 
1, 2, 3 and 4,” which Pat and Ed thought the 
more proper, and which it was then agreed our 
mines should be called. 

Not until late in the afternoon were there any 
signs of fair weather, when we commenced to see, 
as if through a screen, the high peaks above 
the snow. Soon after the clouds, with the ex¬ 
ception of a few little ones that seemed to have 
lost their way, disappeared beyond the horizon; 
then Ed began to prepare supper and sufficient 
bannock to last him a couple of days on his 
trip over the hills, which he concluded to com¬ 
mence the next morning. 

That night we retired to rest at an early hour, 
even before the sun on his daily round had 
commenced to make yellow with his mellow light 
the mountain peaks in the land of the antipodes; 
and as we had been broken of our rest the 
night—or, rather morning—^before by the wayward 
gust of wind, we were soon asleep, and all the 
inhabitants of the Big Basin were unconscious 
of their existence. 

After a long and peaceful nights sleep we 
were all up at break of day; and the sky being 
clear, the wind calm, and everything indicating 
fair weather, for the day at least, Ed commenced 
to prepare the pack he was to carry over the 
hills, which consisted of two small bannocks, a 
few slices of bacon, and some rock from the 
vein discovered, neatly rolled up in a heavy 
double blanket; Pat busying himself in washing 



38 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


the dishes and placing them on our rock-table. 
CHAPTER IV. 

ED LEAVES US—WE MOVE CAMP INTO THE KASLO 
CANON. 

Before Ed rose from the table he did double 
justice to bannock and beans, and when he was 
rising remarked that he thought he would not 
require" anything more to eat until he arrived at 
Ainsworth; and placing each of his arms under 

a strap of his light 
and neat pack, he was 
off for a journey that 
few, if any, human be¬ 
ing had made before, 
though eighteen or 
twenty miles of moun¬ 
tains and canons, dense¬ 
ly timbered, and cov¬ 
ered with brush and 
fallen timber so thick 
that rabbits and other 
game cannot run 
through it and have 
apparently abandoned 
it. 

Pat and I watched 
Ed scale over the snow 
I SAW AND EXCLAIMED, and rock slides along 
“NATIVE SILVER.” (pg. 26 the side of the Basin 
and climb up over the divide, until he was lost 






IN BRITISH COLUMBIA iJU 

to our view, when we commenced to feel lonely 
for him on his lonely trip; and the silence of 
the camp was broken by Pat remarking: “I am 
almost sorry that I did not go instead of Ed; 
but then, he can make the head of the Wood¬ 
bury by noon, and the Gallagher trail by four 
o’clock (if he keeps his head), and if he does 
will be in Ainsworth before dark;” when I, who 
at that time had never visited the Ainsworth 
camp, and knew nothing of the mountains, trails 
and streams near there remarked, ‘ I hope so, he 
is strong and can make it if it be possible.” 

And thus we sat commenting on Ed’s ability 
to scale divides and mountain peaks, and over¬ 
come the obstacles he would find in his way 
until the sun appeared above the Twelve Mile 
divide, which reminded us that we had planned 
to move camp into the Kaslo basin as soon as 
Ed should have left us; and Pat changed the 
theme of conversation with the remark: “Shall 
we move camp today?” to which I replied in the 
affirmative; and we were soon at work making 
up our packs for our short journey of four or 
five thousand feet. When we had our packs 
completed we found that they were of about the 
same weight as the ones we had brought to the 
Basin, and slinging them to our shoulders we 
bid goodbye to a place that had become quite as 
much of a home to us as Bonnivard’s dungeon 
cell became to him, and were soon over the 
divide that Ed had crossed an hour before, and 
descending toward the south into the canon of 


40 PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 

the Kaslo. 

On reaching the Kaslo we followed the stream 
up for some distance and until we came to a 
strip of heavy timber through which a nice 
little stream of water ran, where we stopped, 
boughed another bed and pitched our tent. 

I knew now as Ed had left us that the greater 
part of the cooking had fallen as a heritage to 
me, as Pat would rather wash the dishes, pre¬ 
pare fuel, and do the other chores necessary to 
be done round camp, than prepare the meals; so 
after I had helped Pat string our tent on the 
top—or, ridge-pole (for it was an “A” tent we 
had brought with us) I set to work preparing 
food for dinner. I told Pat that I was going to 
change somewhat our bill of fare, and substitute 
fried cakes instead of bannock, to which he con¬ 
sented. A few moments later I had a good fire 
started, the coffee pot partially filled with water, 
into which 1 had dropped a goodly quantity of 
nicely ground Mocha and Java mixed, bacon cut, 
parboiled and frying in the pan, while I seated 
on a knoll by the side of the fire was attending 
to the frying cakes. The bacon had become suf. 
ficiently fried, and was set to one side, the cof¬ 
fee had a moment before come to a boil, and I 
had finished frying the cakes, which were 
stacked upon a plate and sitting in a warm place 
before the fire, when Pat who had finished pin¬ 
ning down the bottom of the tent came over to 
where the cakes were steaming, saying as ho 
neared the fire, “Well, how are your fried cakes 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


41 


getting on?” I told him that I had finished 
frying them and thought they would be very 
good considering the facilities I had for cooking 
them; when he reached down and took a few 
from off the plate and began sampling them. He 
had no sooner tasted of the cakes when he sur¬ 
prised me by saying; “There, Betts, we would 
have to pay two bits each for a plate of fried 
cakes at any first-class hotel or restaurant in 
civilization not one half as good, or as many, as 
as we have here.” Although I had cooked as 
many as would be served in ten orders in any 
first-class hotel or restaurant the empty plate of 
a few moments later was good evidence as to 
how well fried cakes, bacon and coffee were 
relished at that noonday meal by two lonely 
prospectors, far away from civilization. 

On breaking camp in the morning we had in¬ 
tended to go directly to the top of the Kaslo— 
Cody divide before breaking packs, but as we 
got to the point in the timber where we pitched 
our tent and took dinner we found that the side 
of the divide although in a low canon between 
two high ranges of mountains was quite steep, 
much steeper than it seemed to be from the 
head of the streams and we concluded that it 
would be unwise for us to carry our still heavy 
packs up to the clear and level place on the top 
of the divide, as we would, in a few days be obliged 
to carry them back again; our journey towards 
Ainsworth being at first down the Kaslo canon. 

In the afternoon we strolled up some two 


42 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


hundred rods to the top of the divide, and pre¬ 
pared some posts for use in staking our claims; 
after which we started up over the high range 
in the form of a half circle just below the head, 
and to the south; of the Cody. Circling round 
on the top of this range, and toward the soutl^ 
we arrived in about an hour on top of the 
divide directly above where we first saw 
McDonald descending the mountain a few dft-ys 
previous. We then descended the south side of 
the divide, and bearing towards the west, found 
ourselves a half hour later on the low pass 
above Four Mile creek. From this point we 
circled to the south and east over the line for¬ 
mation, and on across the divide, and down 
through the scattering timber to our new camp¬ 
ing place. 

This little trip was, partly at least, filled with 
incidents worth relating. When we were stand¬ 
ing on the divide above Four Mile, and looking 
toward the west, we espied in the distance, 
between two hills, and apparently in the timber, 
a small portion of Slocan lake, and a boat, no 
doubt the “G. W. Hunter,” steaming along on 
its smooth surface. Ad when bearing to the 
east and south over the line formation we came 
across the fresh tracks in the snow of four real 
goats—two old ones and two kinds—but were 
not sufficiently lucky to see them. And again, 
when we were climbing up on the southerly 
side of the divide, after leaving the lime forma¬ 
tion, we saw, seated under a tree, inside of a 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


43 


circle of small bushes, a nice blue grouse, which 
remained so seated until I, with Pat’s revolver 
in hand, ascended the hill to a point above it, to 
get a good shot at the bird, and then “came 
down like a wolf on the fold” to within a few 
feet of it, took deliberate aim at its back and 
fired. There was immediately a flutter of wings; 
but not, my reader, the flutter of wounded wings 
too much impaired to bear away to a place , of 
safety an otherwise wounded grouse, but of 
strong, whole boned and feathered wings, being 
put to the best use that an All-wise Providence 
had supplied them for—beating a hasty retreat 
from a would-be slayer. The bullet had struck 
her on the back, knocked off a few feath¬ 
ers and glanced off, as appeared from Pat’s re¬ 
port, who a few moments after got sight of the 
bird, but which on seeing him put its wings to 
the same use as before. 

That evening, for our six o’lock dinner, we 
dined on, in addition to the dishes appearing on 
our already amended menu card, a soup made 
from a choice between goat tracks and blue 
grouse feathers. 

This was to be our first night in the timber; 
and Pat, whom no pack of wolves, silver tip 
bear, or mountain lion will ever catch napping, 
presented for debate the question whether or 
not we should keep a fire all night, which was 
unanimously decided in the negative. The tim¬ 
ber we were in was not a forest, but only 
twenty or thirty rods wide, between two bald 


44 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


side hills, and we did not believe that man- 
eaters would be prowling around up there, and 
we deemed it an unnecessary precaution to keep 
a fire burning all night. On retiring for the 
night we, however, took the precaution to place 
all of our provisions in the tent and fasten the 
bottom and entrance securely. Pat placing his 
loaded revolver under his coat, which served 
him for a pillow, and I, placing my hunting 
knife, unsheathed, under mine, which served the 
same purpose for me, at an early hour we lay 
down to rest. Darkness had a moment before 
dropped its somber mantle over the Kaslo-Cody 
divide, and I had fallen into a dose, when I was 
wakened by Pat exclaiming, “What’s that!” and 
as I opened my eyes I beheld Pat in a half 
reclining posture, with right elbow on the blan¬ 
kets beneath him, and he was stealthily peering 
out into the darkness. As I awoke, or, came to 
consciousness, I thought I heard a slight noise 
as though a rat or squirrel was running over 
the dry balsam spills, which were quite thick 
•on the ground, and I said, “What is it Pat?” 
And he whispering said in reply, “I don’t know- 
did you hear it?” And I quieted his nerves by 
saying, “Yes; but it’s nothing that will eat us..” 
And he concluded it was not big enough to do 
much harm, and placed his gun back under his 
coat-pillow, as I did my hunting knife under 
mine. We listened for strange sounds for sev¬ 
eral minutes, and as we heard none we again 
laid down on our arms behind our breastworks. 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


45 


Notwithstanding our little scare we were not 
long conscious of our unprotected resting place, 
and slept as soundly during the night as we 
would have at home, and even longer, for we 
did not waken until eight o’clock the next 
morning, when we discovered on looking out of 
our tent that the tops of the hills were covered 
with snow that had fallen during the night. It 
had also rained in the bottoms, and was then 
raining, but not on our tent or “cook stove”; 
they were sheltered by the thick limbs of the 
balsams above, and we emerged from our tent, 
built our fire, cooked and ate our morning meal, 
with dry clothes, although large drops of rain 
were falling thick and fast all around us. 

The air continued getting colder, and the rain 
did not abate, and we whiled away the weary 
hours of the day by the side of our camp fire, 
continually thinking and speaking of Ed wh© 
we believed was still on the niountains. At bed 
time the air in the canon was uncomfortably 
cool, and we predicted that the snow line would 
fall to the bottom of the canon before morning, 
which proved true, for great flakes of damp 
snow were falling on the already white surface 
of the bottom when we arose the next morning, 
and the sides of the mountains were white up 
to the black clouds near the tops. 

Not long after rising it dawned upon us that 
the morning of our last day in the Slocan had 
come, and we were anxious to see a pleasant day. 
By the time we had finished our breakfast the 


46 PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 

sun seemed to be exerting himself, and making 
his influence felt on the cold air; for the snow 
was then melting as it fell, and soon after gave 
place to clear rain; and before nine o’clock the 
clouds had disappeared and the snow was fast 
leaving the bottom and south side of the hills. 
We then prepared a lunch to carry with us on 
our last tramp, and I, with my small prospecting 
pick, and Pat carrying the small hand ax, a few 
minutes after nine o’clock were off toward the 
KaslO'Cody divide. When we arrived at a point 
in the canon about a hundred rods from our tent, 
we separated, Pat going to the right up over 
the south side of the mountain near a few trees 
of standing timber which he wanted for posts, 
it being agreed that I should go on up to the 
head of the stream, and over the divide into the 
Big Basin, and there set and mark the discovery, 
number two and corner posts of the New York 
number one claim, which had previously been 
prepared, and meet Pat on my return, on the 
vein at the top of the divide, and together set 
and mark the intitial and corner posts of the 
number one and two claims near the top of the 
divide, and then descend south on the vein and 
set the other posts. As I was slowly ascending 
the south side of the divide, on my way over to 
the Basin, I saw, in a few hollows where the 
snow was yet on the ground, the fresh tracks of 
four or five goats. I stole cautiously up over 
the side of the divide to the top, hoping to see 
which of all the animals that frequent the hills 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


47 


we desired to see the most, but was obliged to 
descend into the snow covered basin beyond with 
my desires unsatisfied. I was not long in setting 
and marking the posts in the basin, and was soon 
climbing up over the hard and deep snow, circ¬ 
ling round to the east as I neared the top in 
order to cross the divide from the north—the 
snow over the vein, n ear the top being so 
steep that it was impossible to ascend in a 
straight line toward the south. As I approached 
the top of the snow I saw Pat walk up to the 
top reef from the opposite side, and craning his 
neck over looked round on the snow to see if I 
was returning, when, in a moment he saw me 
resting on the side of the hard and steep reef. 
He quickly cautioned me not to make any noise, 
saying that he had seen some goat tracks, and he 
thought we would be able to get a shot at a 
goat. I silently accepted his words of caution, 
and quietly ascended over the snow to the top. 
When I reached the top Pat had something of 
interest to relate in addition to seeing the goat 
tracks. We had been keeping a sharp look out 
for stakes while on our excursions in and around 
the Big Basin, and had found, or ascertained 
where they were, all the stakes of the Castic 
and Free Coinage claims, except the number two 
post of the latter; and Pat on coming up the 
mountain side, shortly after leaving me in the 
bottom, saw something light colored in the edge 
of the timber, and on going to it found it to be 
the number two post af the Free Coinage. We then 


48 PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 

turned our attention to the goat tracks that were 
plainly visible on the snow on the top of the 
divide, and on following them found that the 
goats had gone along on top of the divide 
toward the west, and in the direction of where 
we wanted to set the corner posts of the New 
York number one and two claims; so we con¬ 
cluded that instead of setting the initial posts 
of those claims at that time we would follow 
along on top of the divide as far at least as a 
thousand feet, where we would set the corner 
posts before returning, and perhaps get a shot 
at a goat in the meantime. We followed along 
on the goat trail for about five hundred feet 
when we came to a little hogback on the south 
side of the divide, near the top, to the left of 
which the goats had gone. 

As we had from this point a good view of the 
south side of the mountain for some distance to 
the west, and bottom, we concluded to take a 
short rest and eat our lunch, and at the same 
time keep a good look out for the herd before 
making a noise in setting our posts. So we 
became seated on a flat rock a few feet below 
the hogback, and about its middle, and began 
eating our cold fried cakes and bacon; and no 
no noonday meal ever tasted better to us than 
did that simple lunch as we sat on that flat rock, 
on the sunny side of the Carpenter-Cody divide 
on that tenth day of August; and no eyes ever 
kept a sharper look out for the inhabitants of 
the craggs than did ours. 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


49 


We had nearly finished eating our lunch, and 
were looking toward the west, when we saw 
something white moving on a rock slide five or 
six hundred feet west of us, and a moment later 
both of us could have been heard to exclaim in 
unison, “a goat!” and sure enough a large kid, 
with horns four or five inches long, and fleece 
whiter than the snow, was walking up over the 
rock slide towards us, occasionally bleating like 
a lamb. We remained seated until the kid came 
to within one hundred and fifty feet of us when 
it turned to the left and was lost to our view 
behind the hogback. It was now evident that 
something had to be done, and that quickly, if 
we dined on more thun goat track soup for our 
six o’clock dinner that evening; so Pat immedi¬ 
ately after the kid commenced to^ circle the 
Carpenter side of the hogback, began to circle 
the Cody side in the direction the kid was going, 
while I remained seated on the rock watching 
the thrust and parry of hunter and game. Pat 
got to within easy shooting distance of the top 
of the range, which he thought the kid would 
in a moment pass, and was all prepared with 
gun pointing over the divide at a point in air 
about two feet above its top in ample time to 
act his part in the drama; but the kid either 
scented tne hunter or heard the loud thumping 
of his heart against his ribs and sternum, which 
could be heard as far away as the rock on which 
I was seated, for in a moment the kid re appeared 
at the westerly end of the hogback and was re- 


50 PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 

tracing its steps as fast as kid legs could carry its 
body. I then called to Pat and informed him of 
the “locus in quo” of his game, and he returned 
to the rock just as the kid was chipping off with 
its sharp hoofs chunks of syenite on its back¬ 
ward flight over the rock sli<Je. 

And thus we had the second opportunity of 
trying to obtain some venison, tried to embrace 
it, and fate stepped in and we failed. 

We then set our corner posts and returned to 
the vein, on which one hundred feet below and 
south of the top of the divide we set and marked 
the initial posts of the New Yorknnmbers 1 and 
2 claims, locating the first in the name of the 
writer, and the second in Ed’s name, and claim¬ 
ing five hundred feet to the east of a line be¬ 
tween the initial and number two posts of each, 
and one thousand feet to the west of the line, 
and fifteen hundred feet in length. We then set 
and marked the corner posis of those claims five 
hundred feet to the east of the initial posts; 
then returned to the vein and dropped down the 
hill to within three or four hundred feet of the 
bottom, where we set and marked the discovery 
posts of the number two claim, after which we 
descended to the bottom, a distance of fifteen 
hundred feet from the initial posts, which were 
near the clump of trees by the Kaslo stream, 
where we set and marked the number two post 
of the number two claim, and the initial post 
of claim number three. 

And so on we set and marked the stakes of 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


51 


the remaining two claims, which we located 
in Pat’s and Weese’s names, placing the initial 
post of each extension to the south at a point 
fifteen hundred feet from the initial post of the 
last one to the north, on which we placed as 
nearly as possible what the laws of Columbia 
require to be placed on the posts of mineral 
claims, and made the posts the required size and 
form; and will leave the reader to ascertain 
what these laws are by reading extracts of the 
same to be found on the last few pages of this 
little volume. 

After our day’s work of staking our claims 
were at an end, we bid adieu to the rippling 
streams, the grassy and flower-decked divide, 
and dropped down through the timber to our 
camping place for a last night’s sleep beside the 
Kaslo; and there to prepare for a journey of at 
least two days, and how many more we did not 
know. 

The first thing we did after reaching camp 
was to examine our provisions, and on looking 
them over we found that the stock was already 
quite low; the oats and corn meal were all 
gone, as also the apples. Since Ed left the sup¬ 
ply of bacon had not become less nearly so fast 
as it did before his departure, and we had a suf¬ 
ficient quantity to last us for a week at least; 
our flour was down to six or eight pounds, and 
we had about two pounds of yellow beans, one 
pound of rice, a quarter of a pound of coffee, 
one pound of salt and a small box of mustard. 


52 


prospecting for minerals 


We concluded to “cache”—^hang up and leave 
behind—our tent and everything in our outfit 
that was not absolutely necessary as provisions 
for use on our homeward journey. And having 
taken account of stock and perfected plans for 
the disposition of our effects, we ate once more 
of our coarse mountain fare, and laid down to 
sleep and quiet dreams, not to be disturbed by 
man eaters, rats or squirrels until broad day light 
the next morning—the 11th. 

On this our last morning at the head of the 
Kaslo, the sun rose with exceptional clearness 
and brightness; and not a cloud was to be seen 
on the hill tops or above the sparkling waters 
of the basins; and it seemed that the “dry sea¬ 
son” would not break again soon, and that we 
were to be favored with dry and pleasant 
weather on our travels. I prepared the bacon, 
bannock and coffee for our breakfast, while Pat 
separated the unnecessary from the necessary in 
our outfit for the “cache,” which was made up 
of the follov^ing articles: One small can baking 
powder, one pound salt, one small can mustard, 
one tent, a dented tin pan and a prospecting 
pick, all of which were placed in a thick Hun¬ 
garian flour sack and securely “cached” under 
the sheltering boughs of a large black moss- 
covered balsam tree, out of the reach of at least 
the caribou and goat. 

CHAPTER V 

OUR HOMEWARD JOURNEY. 

Breakfast over we devided the provisions and 


m BRITISH COLUMBIA 


53 


outfit for a tramp that we knew would be tire 
some and tedious, and blessed be Pat’s name 
forever he took even more than his full share, 
and each rolled his parcels up in blankets and 
canvas, tied and strapped the roll, slung it to 
his back, and we were again “beasts of burden,” 
hoping that in no distant future we would see 
the broad waters of lake Kootenay, and the hot 
steam from the springs rising above the town 
of Ainsworth. 

We had not gone far on our way when we 
found it almost an imposibility to make head¬ 
way through the grass, fallen timber, brush and 
bushes in the bottom, and were obliged to ascend 
the mountain on our left five or six hundred 
feet and above the second growth; then we scaled 
along at that height down the Kaslo basin for 
about two miles, and nearly to where the south 
branch of the Kaslo and its west fork mingle 
their waters, for more than half the distance 
we were obliged to and did walk on “windfalls” 
lying in all directions, not a few of which I 
fell from into the brush and bushes below, while 
Pat with his better nailed shoes, and experience 
on lumber (he having steamered above the Miss¬ 
issippi and other eastern rivers,) could walk even 
the ones lying up and down the mountain like 
a cat. We did not want to descend to the point 
in the bottom where the two streams met, for 
in that case we would be obliged to raise the 
mountain on the west side of the south branch 
from the level of the stream to a point above 


54 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


the second growth as we did the other mountain 
in the mornirg, for our way led up through the 
canon of the south branch of the Kaslo, and the 
wide, densely timbered canon that we saw from 
the divides above the Big Basin was that of its 
east fork. So we commenced to descend the 
mountain side intending to cross the bottom and 
stream and ascend and scale the mountain oppo¬ 
site toward the south. And such a descent its 
was; down a mountain as steep as the side of 
the ordinary square roof of a house; and springy. 
Here nature seemed to have exerted herself to 
the utmost, and caused the side hill to produce 
hay in large quantities, flowers in profusion, and 
tag alders and nettle vines in abundance. And 
by the time we reached the stream I was in 
nearly the same predicament regarding my over¬ 
alls as was Tam O’Shanter’s old mare Meg re¬ 
garding her tail when she reached the “Keystone 
of the brig” in her flight from the warlocks and 
witches of Alloways auld haunted kirk. 

As we crossed the west fork of the Kaslo we 
took our last drink from its pure waters and 
were off without delay for our ascent of the 
mountain on the south, which we found nearly 
as bad to ascend as was the other to descend. 
But perseverance conquered in the end, and in 
the course of half an hour from the time we 
left the stream we were on the side of the 
mountain, above the grass, vines and bushes, 
and slowly winding round the side hill toward 
the divide to the south. We found this moun- 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


55 


tain less covered with brush and fallen timber 
than the other, and we made very good head¬ 
way as we gradually ascended higher and higher 
on its side. After we had traveled two hours or 
more to the south we came in sight, and got a 
good view of the wide, densely timbered canon 
—our pathway—to the left of a mountain in the 
form of a hogback, which extended down from 
the divide nearly to the stream in the basin be¬ 
low; but we knew it would be a tiresome and 
difficult task to reach it, or the divide above it, 
in a direct line from where we then were, as our 
path would be through at least two miles of 
bottom like that of the west fork, and we con¬ 
cluded to try and reach the divide to the south, 
and then scale round it to the divide above the 
wide canon. From where we then were we 
could at times catch a glimpse of the divide to 
the south, and we concluded that our best way 
to reach it would be to ascend the mountain to 
above the timber line, and then either travel 
along on the top of the range or scale the tree¬ 
less side hills; and having reached the divide to 
to the south we could scale round to the divide 
above the wide canon. And so we kept on 
gradually ascending the mountain as we traveled 
towards the south, while the sun poured its hot 
rays upon us as we went. 

The shoe on my right foot did not fit very 
snugly and at this time had commenced to run 
over; and I, to hold myself squarely on the 
side of the mountain half unconsciously tight- 


56 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


Gned and cramped the muscles of my foot, and 
soon I was suffering all the pains of the tor¬ 
mented. But that was no place to play the baby 
act, and on we went, up the mountain side, 
Pat in the lead, as though no foot was cramped 
or sore. Soon we came to quite a large stream 
of water almost falling down the mountain, the 
opposite bank of which from where we ap¬ 
proached it was apparently hard to ascend, 
which induced us to drop our packs, and refresh¬ 
ing ourselves before climbing it. We were not 
long in cooking and eating our scanty meal, and 
as the motto on a tramp is, “quick sales and 
small profits,” we were in a few minutes after 
halting under our pack straps again and 
climbing the steep bank of the almost perpin- 
dicular stream. (. 

During our noon rest I put on an extra pair 
of stockings, and in the afternoon my shoes fit¬ 
ted tighter and better, and I was no longer 
troubled with, a lame foot. We kept ascend¬ 
ing the mountain as fast as we could con¬ 
veniently, but did not seem to gain much on the 
stream belo^w. After about three hours hard 
climbing, however, we came to where the tim¬ 
ber was dwarfed to some extent, and scattering, 
and we thought that we would soon reach the 
timber line and be scaling the smooth side hill, 
or traveling along on the level top above. But 
every fifteen or twenty minutes a steep cliff fifty 
or seventy-five feet in height loomed up in 
front of us, and not a few times were we 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


57 


obliged to descend one or two hundred feet in 
order to find an ascessible way past the rocks, 
when we w^ould have the fatigue of again ascend¬ 
ing the craggy hill side. And thus we kept on 
for two hours or more until we came to an open 
place in the timber, from the top to the bottom 
of the mountain, and about eight rods wide, on 
the south side of which was quite a large stream 
of water which had cut a deep channel in the 
rock. 

This open place, my reader, was the winter 
road of a Mr. Snow. Years before Adam was a 
baby he first brushed it out, and I venture the 
assertion that not a winter has since passed that 
he has not used it. In other words, it was the 
path of a snow slide. In the months of March, 
April and May when the warm rays of the sun 
have made soft and damp the snow on the moun¬ 
tain side, and is then easily rolled up into balls 
and started, it comes rolling, gliding, surging, 
tumbling down the mountain with the fury of a 
demon, sweeping to the bottom of the canon 
standing trees of all sizes, huge rocks and every¬ 
thing in its path. 

The slide served a good purpose that day, for 
it aided us in getting our bearings. We ascer¬ 
tained that we were already too far south; that 
the divide to the south was a long way off, and 
that we were not more than half way up to 
timber line; so we concluded to descend on the 
slide to the bottom and stream below, and there 
camp for the night. The hill was steep and 


58 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


rocky—-the slide had grown up with small 
bushes—and it was not an easy matter to des¬ 
cend to the bottom; but we continued to drop 
down slowly, holding onto, and letting ourselves 
down from bench to bench by the small bushes 
and shrubs. Soon we came to a more level place 
where the earth was torn up as though by bears, 
and below which was a succession of narrow and 
steep benches in the rock. 



DOWN I WENT, HEAD FIRST, 
OVER THE ROCKY STEPS. 

I was again fortunate in 
two rolls over the rocks 


At this point Pat for 
some reason dropped 
to the rear, and I com¬ 
menced the descent of 
the benches in the 
lead. I had no sooner 
taken the first step 
down the benches 
when the strap of my 
right shoe became 
loose and I stepped on 
it with my left shoe, 
and down I went, 
head first, over the 
rocky steps. I had 
sufficient presence of 
mind to turn myself 
while falling so that 
my pack would touch 
the rocks first and 
break my fall, which 
doing; and after one or 
my momentum ceased. 
















IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


59 


and the cuticle, and the cutus also, ceased be¬ 
coming grandly less on my legs, arms and every 
unprotected spot. No bones were broken, how¬ 
ever, and I was yet conscious. I slowly re¬ 
gained my feet, and as I did so I turned round 
to see where Pat was, when I saw him stand¬ 
ing a few rods above me, facing the mountain 
top, apparently as full of unexpressed laughter 
as an egg is of meat. As I saw Pat I began to 
laugh, for my fall then appeared as ridiculous 
to me as it had to him; and I told him he had 
better not spoil his laugh for relation sake, 
when he joined with me in hear thy laughter. 
As soon as Pat could speak, he said: ‘‘Betts, 
you will break your neck over these rocks if 
you are not more careful. I would hate like 

h-1 to carry you over that high divide on 

the other side of the canon.’’ I remarked that I 
thought my neck was in more danger from the 
rocks than from the hangman’s noose, and 
promised to be more careful to keep my equili¬ 
brium in the future. Again we started, Pat tak¬ 
ing the lead, and we were soon crossing the bot¬ 
tom to the stream, up which we went four or 
five hundred feet, when we came to a good 
camping place, where :we dropped our packs, thus 
bringing to an end a hard day’s journey. 

As our tent was left in the cache, at the head 
of the Kaslo, we were now obliged to use our 
substitute—a canvass blanket—which Pat car¬ 
ried to protect his woolen blankets from the 
brush and wet We were now in the timber, and 



60 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


in the heart of a great forest, six or seven 
miles in diameter, and we thought that if any 
man eaters had their domiciles in British Colum¬ 
bia they were as liable to be near where we 
dropped our packs as any other place, so it was 
agreed that a fire should be kept burning all 
night. 

Not long after our packs touched the ground 
Pat was robbing an old stub near by of its coat 
for fuel, and 1 was engaged in preparing our 
camping place, and cooking our evening meal. 
After supper we placed one edge of the canvass 
blanket on the ground, and the other over a 
pole placed about three feet above the ground 
and near the fire, under which we placed some 
boughs and our blankets, and I laid down on 
the back side to rest and sleep, while Pat occu¬ 
pied the front side and replenished the fire with 
fuel every half hour during the night. Not a 
sound was heard to disturb our slumber and 
peace of mind during the night, and we arose 
early the next morning in good trim for another 
days tramp. 

By this time we had commenced to think that 
Ainsworth was more than a days journey hence, 
and we lost no time in the morning of the 
twelfth, and were crossing on our journey the 
wide south branch of the Kaslo, on a large log, 
one end of which rested on either bank, at the 
■early hour of seven o’clock. After ascending 
the mountain, or hogback (the one we saw to 
our left the day before,) some five hundred feet 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


61 


and above the underbrush, we bore toward the 
upper end of it, gradually ascending in the 
direction of the lowest place in the divide- 
When we had labored faithfully for two hours 
and a half or three hours, we thought we could 
see the top of the timber, and the divide a few 
hundred feet above it, which gave us new cour¬ 
age, and for sometime after our steps were 
quicker and our rests shorter. In the course of 
half an hour we came to the point on the 
mountain side that we thought, on looking up 
from below, was the timber line, only to see 
timber higher up and the top of the divide as 
before a short distance above it. And so on we 
trudged, every few minutes seeing the timber^ 
only to get there and find timber higher up 
until it was noonday; and we found ourselves 
on a large bench through which a small stream 
of water, divided into several still smaller, ran, 
and cutting a beautiful plot into little mounds. 
Here on a large fiat rock we spread our already 
prepared dinner, ate it, and drank from the lit¬ 
tle pepply streams. It was a hasty visit we 
paid that little, quiet and park-like nook on'the 
mountain side that August day, and in a few 
minutes after we had spread our lunch upon the 
rock we were climbing up a steep bank covered 
with grass and small rocks, to another bench 
about one hundred feet higher than the little 
park below and nererer the top of the divide 
some three hundred feet than our “dining table. ” 
As we ate our dinner we thought that the 




62 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


little rivulets and moss-covered mounds at our 
feet were the only things and spots of beauty 
on the side of that desolate and rocky hogback; 
but on ascending the second bench what a charm¬ 
ing picture our eyes beheld! A beautiful lake 
two or three hundred feet across in a little basin 
on the upper bench, and still another much 
larger and prettier on the bench below, and 
only a few hundred feet from where we ate our 
dinner, with waters bluer than the deep blue sky 
above, and as placid and glassy as a mirror at 
rest; while near one edge was a little rock 
island, ten or fifteen feet long and wide, on 
which were two small but thrifty trees that cast 
their perfect shadows in the clear waters below. 

After gazing in rapture and wonder at the un¬ 
rivaled scene of beauty before us for several 
minutes we again started thinking that we would 
reach the top of the divide in an hour at the 
most, as it appeared no more than four or five 
hundred above the top most lake. 

We were now near timber line, and our path 
was over steep grassy banks and rock slides, 
which we found much easier to ascend over than 
brush and fallen timber, and in a couple of hours 
from the time we turned our backs on the pretty 
picture of lakes and trees below we found our¬ 
selves scaling along on the top of the bank, and 
under and by the side of massive piles of rock, 
the sides of which towered hundreds of feet above 
the bank and debris below, and was as perpin- 
dicular as a plumb line—the last of a great 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


63 


mountain peak, and seemingly a monument to 
its own greatness. And here, under the massive 
pile of perpindicular rock, we found a long cav¬ 
ern—perhaps the winter home of the bear or 
lion—the entrance to which was at least ten feet 
in diameter, a worthy companion to the rocky 
mountain top. We kept diligently climbing over 
rocks and rocky banks until about four o’clock 
in the afternoon, when we finally took our last step 
on the southwest side of the great hogback, and 
looked over the top to find that the waters on 
the other side flowed to the north and west, and 
were Kaslo waters, and that we would be obliged 
to cross another divide before we would reach 
the waters of the Woodbury, or other than those 
of the Kaslo. 

The northeast side of the hogback we had 
ascended was a high mass of broken down moun¬ 
tain top, over which for forty or fifty rods we 
were obliged to descend. My courage almost 
failed me as I looked down over the steep hill 
of massive boulders, for such a place is the last 
that I can feel at ease on. To get down twenty 
or thirty feet from the very top was by far the 
worst; and I knew if I tried to descend it with 
my pack on my back that it would most likely 
strike against the rocks and I would tumble 
headlong over the rocks and perhaps into some 
deep hole; and I concluded not to take any 
chances of injury, and slipped the pack straps 
from off my shoulders and threw the pack over 
the rocks to a more level place twenty feet be- 


64 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


low, and I followed in the direction it went a 
moment later. 

Having descended the rocky side of the moun¬ 
tain top, to a comparatively level plateau below, 
we pulled round a little lake, on a ridge partly 
covered with snow, for about a mile, toward and 
near another divide, by the side of which was 
a great glacier, where we slipped our pack 
straps and brought to a close that Sabbath day’s 
journey. 

There are no such glaciers in British Co- 
Imbia as those of Mount Blanc and many other 
large and high mountains. There are, however, 
a great many that never becorde less than one 
hundred feet in thickness and cover an area of 
one to ten acres in extent. But, as I under¬ 
stand Ed anticipates writing a book entitled, 
“The Glaciers of West Kootenay,” and as he 
will do the subject complete justice, I will not 
weary my readers with a record of my scant 
knowledge of them, and will pass on as I hear 
in my mind the motto of the packer. 

The place where we pitched our blanket tent 
that Sunday evening was in all a picturesque 
spot. To the southeast, distant some ten hun¬ 
dred feet, stood the great, bald and blunt moun¬ 
tain peak at the head of the Kaslo; at its base 
the great glacier, fully as large as the largest 
one I have mentioned, white with clean new 
snow, with only here and there on its edges a 
dark spot telling of the dirty snow of ages be¬ 
neath; a low grassy divide stretching from the 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. 


65 


base of the mountain to the north and west, and 
another lower and to the north of the first some 
five hundred feet, moss-covered and with 
here and there on its side a scrubby 
tree, at the southerly base of which tumbled 
along a small stream of water, a peculiarity of 
which was that it ran beneath the surface of the 
ground for twenty feet, then bubbled up again, 
near where we built our camp fire; and between 
the glacier and the lower ridge—our camping 
place—was one of those beautiful little moun¬ 
tain lakes, lying there leach-like in the hollow 
of the mountain top, and continually sucking the 
“life-blood” from the eternal pile of ice and 
snow above it; while to the east six or eight 
hundred feet was what we hoped would prove to 
be the Kaslo-Woodbury divide. 

As it became time for retiring black clouds 
commenced to cover the western and southern 
sky; and the wind came whistling over the di¬ 
vide from the south, and over us, but a little 
too high to do damage to our frail protection; 
and we did not know which was in store for us, 
six inches of snow, a drenching rain, fair 
weather or a small wind storm, either one of 
which was as liable to be visited upon us as the 
other, and fortunately for us it was the latter. 

We were blessed with good rest and peaceful 
sleep on the moss-covered ridge the second night 
of our journey, and wakened early the morning 
of the 13th fresh and strong for what we 
thought was an easy day’s tramp to Ainsworth. 


66 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


In the morning Pat mapped out our pathway 
for the day in language as follows: “If that be 
the Woodbury divide (pointing toward the high 
ridge east of us), having reached the top we will 
go down on the other side to where the waters 
have all come together in one stream, then we 
will keep well up to the right on the mountain 
side, and will soon reach the Gallagher trail, 
and then we will be within two hours’ easy walk 
of Ainsworth;” and all I could, or did, reply, 
was “I hope so.” 

Again on Monday morning, as on the morn¬ 
ing before, we were on our journey at seven 
o’clock. ® We found the divide not so hard,- to 
ascend as we had anticipated, for we kept on the 
snow of the circular hill and basin, well up to 
the glacier, and gained height rapidly, and within 
forty minutes from the time we broke camp we 
were descending the easterly, snow-covered side 
of the divide, following in our descent waters 
that ran in an opposite directien irom those of 
the Kaslo, confident that we had at last reached 
the head waters of the Woodbury. 

We quickly descended onto a large park-like 
place covered with small trees, running streams, 
lakes, hills, ridges and valleys, and for more 
than two hours the scene did not materially 
change although we scarcely took a rest 

Pat had lived for several months in the 
spring in and around Ainsworth, and was 
familiar with all the hiUs and mountain tops 
within six or eight miles of that place, and had 


m BRITISH CX)LUMBIA 


67 


been up the Woodbury a long distance; but 
when we got on top of the divide in the morn¬ 
ing no mountain, not even the long range on 
our left, which stretched to the eastward for 
six or eight miles, seemed natural to him; and 
every now and then, pointing to the long and 
high ridge to the left, he would say, “That 
must be the range East of the Woodbury—it 
don’t seem to have a natural apx)earance, though, 
its top was covered with snow when I last saw 
it.” At about ten o’clock we reached a more 
timbered locality—the waters seemed to have 
come together, for then we were by the side 
of quite a large stream—the mountains on 
either side had taken shape, and the one on 
our right presented its broad, timbered side 
to us. And on we went, scarcely making a 
stop, until the noon hour when we came to 
another branch of the stream, quite as large 
as the one we had descended, and then we 
were sanguine that we had at last reached the 
main Woodbury; and we sat down and ate the 
lunch we had prepared and carried with us 
all the forenoon. Pat remarked while eating 
lunch: “It has more water than I thought was 
in Woodbury,” and as if to drive away all 
doubts and fears he quickly followed his 
former remark with “But then, it is August 
now, and mountain streams unlike those of a 
level country, are higher in the warm months 
of summer than any other time of year.” And 
mapping out our pathway for the afternoon te 


68 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


said as we packed away our dishes: “We will 
cross the stream here, and keep well up on 
the right until we come to the Gallagher trail. ” 
And so we did cross the wide stream, and 
bore well up to the right on the mountain, 
over brush, bushes, logs, canons, tag-alder 
slides and rocks, while the waters of the 
stream rolled gently, but briskly, along the 
bottom of the canon, singing their little 
songs, to mingle with those of their sister 
stream at least seven miles away. 

Do you know what a tag-alder slide is? Well 
if you do, or, do not, 1 will tell you. Imagine 
a gulch or springy place down a mountain 
side from one to ten rods wide, thick with 
alder trees of all sizes up to eight inches in 
diameter—standing—or, rather reclining in all 
directions—mostly in one down hill—the only 
ones that are not being forced to stand erect 
by some freak of nature in the others forcing 
them up. That is a tag-alder slide. Then go 
through it with a pack on your back and not 
say any swear words and there is at least one 
person in the world who would not commit the 
crime of blasphemy under the greatest provoca¬ 
tion. 

About two hours after we had left the stream, 
and when we were nearly two miles from where 
we ate dinner, and were scaling along the side 
hill in search of the Gallagher trail, where 
three large cedars, six or eight feet through 
were standing in a row. Pat on seeing the 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


69 


large trees became quite elated, and his coun¬ 
tenance, which all the day had been downcast, 
lighted up with a smile of joy; and seating 
himself by the side of one of the great trees, 
and letting his pack rest against it, he became 
for the first time since noon inclined to talk; looking 
the trees and surroundings over carefully he 
said, “These (the cedars) are the first objects on 
our journey that I am sure of having seen 
before,” to which I replied, “when did you see 
these cedars before Pat?” and his answer was 
“Weese and I went by these trees one Sunday 
last spring on our return from staking a claim 
up the Woodbury.” And I again answered, I 
hope so.” “Well”, replied Pat, “I know so; and 
the Gallagher trail is not far above us—come on 
and we will sleep in Adrian’s cabin on the hill 
above Ainsworth tonight. And so on we went 
again, for four long hours, crawling through the 
most tangled and twisted small trees; over the 
deepest gorges with steepest banks; up and over 
the steepest and rockiest hill sides; and picking 
our way through the widest and meanest tag-al¬ 
der and devil’s-club slides to be found in the 
whole Silkirk mountains, but no Gallagher trail 
or camps appeared in view. It was now nearly 
night, and Pat had changed his mind regarding 
his having seen the cedars before, and was 
doubtful of our close proximity to the Gallagher 
trail; and then he reasoned: “If we are not near 
the Gallagher trail, where in the Dickens are 
we?” And the only conclusion he could come to 


70 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


was that we were above it. Just then we 
caught a glimpse of a small sheet of water to 
our left, and to the left of the large stream in 
the bottom; and we saw smoke ascending appar¬ 
ently from out of the timber near the water, 
which we thought was the smoke of a passing 
steamer. But whether the water was a portion 
of Kootenay lake or Kootenay river, we did not 
know, and if the lakes what portion of it was 
equally as difficult a problem to solve. The 
water was several miles away, and should we 
go directly to it we would be obliged to go 
through the bottom which was covered with 
burnt timber and second growth, so we kept 
on scaling the mountain side until clouds began 
to appear, and rainbows were pattering on the 
boughs above us. At this time we found our¬ 
selves by the side of a small stream of water 
that seemed to have picked out the one low 
place on the whole mountain side that was not 
covered with tag-alders and devil’s-clubs, and 
we concluded to descend the mountain in the 
bed of the stream to the bottom and as we 
were descending keep a good lookout for the 
Gallagher trail. I was heartily glad that Pat 
was willing to descend to the bottom, and 
jumped into the waters of the brook, and began 
the descent in the lead, and followed down its 
rocky bed for nearly an hour when we reached 
the bottom, haying seen no Gallagher, or any 
other trail, in our descent. It was now evident 
that the Gallagher mine was not on the side of 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


71 


the mountain T^hich we had been traveling, and 
Pat was completely lost As it was now dark 
we threw our packs off under a few large and 
tall cedars that stood by the side of the large 
stream and sheltered a level and gravelly spot 
sufficiently large for a good camping place, 
where we spread our blankets and rested our 
weary limbs during the night. 

The next morning I awoke before the break 
of day, foraged fuel, and when the first faint 
light of dawn appeared began to prepare break¬ 
fast and a lunch to carry with us, for we 
made up our minds the night before that we 
would make no lengthy stops until we should 
have come to Ainsworth, or, some supply cen¬ 
ter, as our stock of provisions had already be¬ 
come dangerously low. Broad day light found 
us with breakfast eaten, packs made up, and 
on our fourth days journey, having cashed be¬ 
side the stream my overalls which was then 
composed of more holes than duck. It had 
rained during the night, and the brush, logs 
and bushes that were thick in the bottom and 
on the side hill, were loaded with water. Yet 
for all that we started out with good courage, 
Pat taking the lead, and made good headway as 
we gradually ascended the mountain side that 
we had descended as the shades of night were 
settling and the rain drops falling the evening 
before. 

Pat had at this time began to believe that we 
■^01^ yet farther from Ainsworth than he im" 


72 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


agined we were the day before, and that the 
Gallagher trail and mine were further to the 
east and on the same side of the mountain, so 
we made no stop for two hours. At this time 
we found that we were nearing quite open 
timber, and that the mountain was no longer 
steep in front of us, but was quite level, and 
we could see to our right the mountain with 
its steep and abrupt end, and we knew we had 
reached the end of the range, and that, our 
where-abouts would be revealed to us in a few 
hours at most. A moment* later we saw in 
front of us an opening fn the timber, and soon 
we were into a burnt piece on the top of quite 
a high but level mountain, and to our left were 
the broad waters of a lake; and in front of us, 
at the farther side of the canon was quite a 
large stream, but not as large as the one we 
had camped beside the night before. When we 
caught sight of the turbulent stream Pat 
remarked “I know where we are now! that is 
Cedar Creek—^we are below the Woodbury—and 
Ainsworth is just around that point (pointing 
down to the mouth of the stream.) and I 
answered as I had many times before, “I hope 
so.” 

We hastened on to the brow of the hill and 
there stopped for rest, when up sprang a large 
red deer (the first animal we had seen since we 
saw the kid going hastily to Westward along 
the Carpenter—Cody divide,) which bounded 
away over the burnt logs and into the timber. 


IN BRITISH COLU]VIBIA 


73 


The h i ll was very steep where we came to its 
brow, and that was one reason why we did not 
descend to the stream below and follow it down; 
another was that Pat was not yet certain where 
we were and desired to get a better view of 
the surrounding country before taking a partic¬ 
ular route, so we scaled down round the brow 
of the hill near the top for half a mile or more, 
when we saw what Pat thought was the Blue 
Bell cabins across the lake; but as they were 
four mils from Ainsworth, and on the opposite 
side of the lake, and we had not yet got the 
lay of the land they did not aid us much in 
ascertaining how far we were, and what direction 
from Ainsworth. A moment later we caught 
sight of a boat steaming toward the south, and 
near the shore, but was soon lost to our view. 
After several minutes we heard a whistle—a 
double one—^when Pat said, “that is the Ains¬ 
worth, and she is whistling for Ainsworth. We 
are further away from the end of our journey 
than Cedar, and this must be the Woodbury.” 
In a few minutes after I was somewhat sur¬ 
prised when Pat remarked “I know where we 
are now; that is the Woodbury, but we are on 
the wrong side of it; that iron Carbonate hill 
yonder is on the Ainsworth side of the ^Wood¬ 
bury. And now let us look and see if we can 
see a cabin on that level place at the base of 
the hill.” And we looked closely and soon saw 
a cabin in the bottom below the red side hill. 
And on looking still further toward the lake we 


74 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


saw a canon, as of the stream we had camped 
beside the night before; and it then dawned on 
Pat for the first time that there were two 
branches to the Woodbury—the north and south 
—and that we had descended the north branch, 
the one he was never on; and that the Gallagher 
trail and mine were on the opposite side of the 
south branch from where we approached it 

We took a good rest, and then dropped down 
the steep side hill, and on down the canon to 
the stream near the log cabin, feasting on 
huckleberries as we went They were the first 
huckleberries that I had ever eaten, and were 
toothful indeed; and having eaten many of 
them since, my experience bids me thus declare: 
that in all the catagory of berries, if there be 
one more fleshy, luscious and juicy than another, 
it is the large, brown colored huckleberry, that 
grows on the huckle-berry tree on the hills 
around Ainsworth, 

As soon as we reached the Ainsworth side of 
the stream we threw off our packs and sat down 
on the rocks, ate our lunch, and wrung the 
water out of our stockings and pants-legs and 
dried them in the sun. 

It was about mid-day when we bid good-bye 
to the Woodbury and started on the trail for 
Ainsworth, which seemed to us as a feast after 
a famine, so much more pleasant walking was 
it on the trail than through brush and tag alder 
slides; and were not long in reaching and 
passing first the Rand mine, then the Highland, 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


75 


and on across Cedar creek to the wagon road, 
when we then had one continual hill to descend, 
which we soon paced off, wondering how long 
it took Ed to make the journey; and at a few 
minutes after two o'clock on the fourth day of 
our hard journey from the heads of the Kaslo 
and Cody, we came in sight of the steaming 
hills above and town of Ainsworth, and were 
turning into the path that led to Weese’s 
pleasantly situated cabin over looking both. 



76 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 



ON SCALING ALONG THE SIDE OF THE GLACIER HE 
CAME TO WHERE IT WAS ALL ICE BENEATH 
THE covERma (page 78.) 


CHAPTER VI. 

WE MEET ED—HIS EXPERIENCE. 

As we neared Weese’s cabin we met Ed re¬ 
turning from the little stream south of the 
cabin with a pail of water in his hand, and his 
first words of greeting were, “Did you see that 
goat?'’ We had no sooner answered Ed’s jocular 




IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


77 


question in the affirmative when he said “I ar¬ 
rived here only last night.And then he 
showed ns a large black and blue bunch on his 
thigh; and we slung our packs off from our 
backs and all became seated on the steps before 
the cabin; then Ed related to us his experience 
after he left us in the Big Basin the morning of 
the eighth. 

It appeared from his story that during the 
first day of his journey he took nearly the same 
course that we did, and for the same reason did 
not go up the wide canon, but ascended the 
mountain on the west of the south branch of 
the Kaslo faster than we did, and reached the 
timber line before he came opposite to our first 
camping place; when he scaled along near the 
top of the range to the divide to the south 
which he ^ reached about dark; and he there 
spread his blanket down under a projecting rock 
and tried to keep warm during the night. Be¬ 
fore daybreak the morning of the ninth it cloud¬ 
ed up and rain and snow began falling, and 
when he arose was unable to see two thousand 
feet in any direction so thick were the fog 
clouds; and he was compelled to make the rock 
that sheltered him the night of the eighth shel¬ 
ter him that of the ninth also. At quite a late 
hour on the morning of the tenth the clouds 
having disappeared he ate the last piece of ban¬ 
nock and bacon he had taken with him, and 
started out to make Ainsworth that day, and 
was making good headway on the divide until 


LofC. 


78 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


about eleven o’clock in the forenoon when he found 
himself on top of a great glacier, which was 
covered with five or six inches of soft new snow; 
and on scaling along the side of the glacier he 
came to where it was all ice beneath the cover¬ 
ing, and he slipped and shd down over it onto 
a rock slide more than a hundred feet below, 
which was the cause of his black and blue and 
much swollen thigh. It was not until an hour 
after his injury that he could even stand, and 
to leave the scene of his accident on that day 
was entirely out of question; so he crawled to a 
sheltered place several rods away, spread his 
blanket and rested the remainder of that day 
and until the morning of the eleventh, when 
hunger compelled him to travel. Suffering in¬ 
tense pain from his injured thigh and weak from 
hunger he started on his journey as soon as 
morning light appeared and scaled along on the 
side of the range toward the east, until two 
o’clock in the afternoon, when he saw a sheet of 
water several miles to his left, which he immej 
diately started toward, and reached after early 
candle light. He was fortunate in reaching the 
waters edge near where some wood choppers 
were camping, and he was sheltered that night 
and furnished food by them, and learned from 
them that he was beside the Kootenay river, 
over a mile from Kootenay lake, and distant five 
or more miles beyond Ainsworth. 

After the clouds had cleared away the morning 
of the tenth he was unable to distinguish the 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


79 


mountain at the head of the wide canon from 
the others, and he bore too far to the south and 
missed the head waters of the Woodbury, and 
all other streams that empty into Kootenay lake, 
near Ainsworth, and followed the range past 
Ainsworth, and not far from the Sky Line and 
Number One mines. 

He was kindly treated and fed by the gentle¬ 
men wood choppers until he could get aboard of 
a boat going in the direction of Ainsworth. He 
signaled one or two boats in passing the morn¬ 
ing of the twelfth, but could not get a reply. On 
the morning of the the thirteenth he signaled 
the steamer Nelson as she was going from Kaslo 
to Nelson, and she slowed up a sufficient length 
of time for her captain to tell him to be on a 
raft in the river later in the day and he would 
pick him up when his boat was making her re¬ 
turn trip from Nelson to Kaslo. He then set to 
work making a raft to carry him into the boats 
channel; and a few minutes before the Nelson 
was due he bid his friends—the wood choppers 
—goodbye, jumped upon his raft, and at the 
time the Nelson hove in sight was on his cata¬ 
maran and into the thread of the channel. A 
moment later her bow was opposite, and nearly 
on his frail craft, and as she slowly moved along 
he was pulled on board and taken to Ainsworth. 

And thus we met after a separation of seven 
days, most of which were to each of us days of 
anxiety and hard work, such as we could not 
have endured under other circumstances, but 


80 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


withal days of experience. 

And now, my readers, the simple narrative 
of the labors and incidents of our short pros¬ 
pecting trip are at an end; and I will lay aside 
my pen until some subsequent season, hoping 
that you, on your initial prospecting trip., will 
endure the hardships of your journey with as 
much fortitude as did the discoverers of the 
New York Group. 



IN BRITISH CX)LUMBIA 


81 


EXTRACTS FROM MINING LAWS OP 
BRITISH COLUMBIA, CHAP. 25. 


An act Relating to Gold and other Metals 
Excepting Coal [as Amended in 
. • 1892 , 1893 AND 1894 .] 


‘‘Rock in place” shall mean aU rock in place 
bearing valuable deposits of gold, silver, cinabar, 
lead, copper, iron, or other minerals usually 
mined except coal. 

“Mineral claim” shall mean the personal 
rights of property or interest in any mine. 

“Legal Post” shall mean a stake standing not 
less than four feet above the ground, and 
squared or faced on four sides for at least one 
foot from the top, and each side so squared or 
faced shall measure at least four inches on its 
face so far as squared or faced, and any stump 
or tree cut off and squared or faced to the 
above height and size. ♦ 

“Free Miner” shall mean a person, or joint 
stock company named in, and lawfully possessed 
of, a valid existing free miners certificate, and 
no other. 




82 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


Sec. 3. Every person over but not under 
eighteen years of age and every joint stock com¬ 
pany, shall be entitled to all the rights and 
privileges of a free miner, and shall be consid¬ 
ered a free miner upon taking out a free miners 
certificate [on payment of $5.00 annually.] 

Sec. 9. A share holder in a joint stock com¬ 
pany need not be a free miner, and, though not 
a free miner, shall be entitled to buy, sell, hold, 
or dispose of any shares therein; and provided 
also, that this section shall not apply to mineral 
claims for which a certificate of improvement or 
crown grant has been issued. 

Sec. 14. Any free miner desiring to locate a 
mineral claim shall, subject to the provision of 
this act, with respect to land which may be 
used for mining, enter upon the same and lo¬ 
cate, a plot of ground measuring, where possible 
but not exceeding 1,500 feet in length by 1,500 
feet in breadth. 

Sec. 15. A mineral claim shall be marked by 
two legal posts, placed as near as possible on 
the line of the ledge or vein, and the posts shall 
be numbered 1 and 2, and the distance between 
posts 1 and 2 shall not exceed fifteen hundred 
feet; the line between posts Nos. 1 and 2 to be 
known as the location line, and upon posts Nos. 
1 and 2 the names of the locators and the date 
of the location. Upon the No. 1 jxjst there 
shall be written in addition to the foregoing, 
“Initial Post”, the approximate compass bearing 
No. 2 post, and a statement of the number of 


IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 


83 


feet lying to right and to left of the line from 
No. 1 to No. 2 post, thus:—“Initial post, direc¬ 
tion of post No. 2, . feet of this claim lie 

on the right, and .feet on the left of the 

line from No. 1 to No. 2 post.” 

All the particulars required to be put on No. 
1 post shall be furnished by the locator to the 
mining Recorder, and shall fonn a part of the 
record of each claim. 

No mineral claim shall be recorded without 
the application being accompanied by an affidavit 
or solemn declaration made by the applicant, or 
some person in his behalf cognizant of the facts, 
that mineral has been found in place on the 
claim proposed to be recorded. 

Sec. 19. Every free miner locating a mineral 
claim shall record the same with the mining 
Recorder of the ^trict within which the same 
is situated ‘ within fifteen days after the location 
thereof, if located within ten miles of the office 
of the said mining Recorder. One additional day 
shall be allowed for such record for every addi¬ 
tional ten miles or fraction thereof. 

Sec. 24. Any free miner having duly located 
and recorded a mineral claim shall be entitled to 
hold the same for the period of one year from 
the recording of the same, and thence from year 
to year, without the necessity of re-recording; 
provided, however, that during each year and 
each succeeding year, such free miner, shall do 
or cause to be done, work on the claim itself to 
the value of one hundred dollars, and shall 




84 


PROSPECTING FOR MINERALS 


satisfy the Gold Commissioner or Mining Recor¬ 
der by affidavit that such work has been done. 

Sec. 36. Whenever the lawful holder of a 
mineral claim shall have complied with the fol¬ 
lowing requirements to the Gold CommissionerJ 
he shall be entitled to receive from the Gold 
Commissioner a certificate of improvements in 
respect of such claims, (a) Done or caused to be 
done work on a claim itself in developing a mine 
to the value of five hundred dollars, exclusive of 
all houses, buildings, and other improvements. 
For the purpose of this section work done on 
the claim by a predecessor or predecessors in 
title shall be deemed to have been done by the 
applicant. 

Sec. 39. On the granting and recording of 
the certificate of improvements the holder thereof 
shall be entitled to a crown grant of the land 
described therein, on the payment of $5.00. • 


H. ©. SHTTi), 
Attorney ^ Counsellor-at-Law, 

.|05 Boston Block, 

MINNEAPOLIS, ... MINN. 


Especial attention given to Probate, Commercial 
and Insolvency business. Large experience in 
Real Estate and personal injury cases. 





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